I’m breathing

You don’t need to tell me all the reason I should hate myself. I already know them. I repeat them to myself every night with nootropics to keep me awake and kicking. Kicking myself for being a failure, for not doing anything right. For never being enough.

I try to do everything right. I read the textbooks, look over my notes, do the work. I could not work for an entire MONTH, an entire 30 DAYS, and I would STILL be advanced in my classes. because I work hard. I “grind” and “hustle” everyday. But unless I haven’t walked in the snow in nothing but flip flops and a cardigan, not knowing where I am and living all the other near-death experiences, I haven’t suffured. I haven’t worked hard. I have done nothing. Not enough, I could do more.

Here’s what I’d love to do father.

I’d love to watch you.

Watch me.

Just out a window.

Or a balcony.

To my death.

Watch you watch the puppet you have spent all that time crafting, and breaking and destroying and demoralizing, fall.

To her own death.

And watch as you realize.

I can in fact think for myself.

Just enough to know that I should die.

And I’m the only one who deserves to make that happen.

Not you,

not my grades,

not the big bad world that will supposedly crush me if I’m not the best all the time.

Just me.

Only

Me.