My mind has been clouded with thoughts of you

Books, grades, disappointment

Anxiety, sleep, doubt

My first.

Another test, a trial

Will I pass?

Lost something I thought would last

Then you came along

I couldn't be with you

We're the same, but different

Different ways, different beliefs of what's above

Staring at the screen

Not being able to hear your voice

Not actually having you beside me

Yet you still make me smile

Cheered me up from the sadness that loss has brought

And made me forget

Minutes to hours

Then eventually to "goodnights"

Every. Single. Day.

The clouds wouldn't leave me alone

The constant, forbidden desire of comfort

Touch.

A somewhat dangerous friendship

But I didn't want it to end.

I'm sorry.

Do you forget that what is pleasing for you to look at isn’t all that there is?

That what you love isn’t always yours to keep, but yours to miss?

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am the love you never wanted,

the What Else that there is.

I am here to tell my story, and you should listen to the haunted.

For what feels like forever -- I have battled

a strange pain. I ache with emptiness

as the one you won’t notice and the one

who’s no fun. I am unseen, unpleasant,

with heartstrings undone.

I’m floating about and wandering.

I’m wondering why it must be me,

and I’m trying to remember what I

have been. Girl. Woman.

Since the beginning I have known

I am Human -- for I am skin and flesh and blood and bone as most.

But truth be told, I am better off Ghost.

I.

Are you Angry?

So much so that your biscuit brown eyes

light up in flames of raspberry -

flickering with malicious intent?

Does the blood in your veins burn?

As you bite your rose tongue,

do you yearn

to scream out and let the voices in your head be heard?

II.

It feels as if the feelings will stay forever,

maybe build a home in your twisted little heart.

But just as the clouds reveal the sun after a storm,

a storm that seems to have an end - never.

You remember you can do that too, and reveal your true side,

that is Sweet, an oozing-with-sugar strawberry tart.

I always broke pencils when I was younger, there were plenty there and I used the broken halves all the time, or taped them back together, it never seemed like a big deal to me.

Then two days ago, in the midst of sleep deprivation and stress, my fingers smoothed over the cheap mechanical pencil rolling on my desk. It started with my hands slowly bending it in half, then the plastic beginning to crack. Releasing the pressure, it returned to normal, white lines spidering like webs over the once flawless blue barrel.

As quick as I could, I snapped it in half, the lead broke with the rest of the plastic casing that was supposed to act as a guard and handle for its user. Now on my desk sat the broken pencil, something that I just couldn’t put back together. First aid was required, masking tape replaced bandages, wound and wound around the broken body. The plastic was stuck feasibly together, crooked but staying together. I slotted new lead into the pencil, but it wouldn’t fit. Once something is broken, it never really works the same way again.

The plastic fell apart, the pressure too much. So it was with black ink and a heavy sigh that wrote out the words upon paper, instead of grey, friendly and familiar lead.