sometimes i just want to drop the symbolism

and just empty my head

the real and the bitter, like black coffee--

see? there i go again

you should know that i love mornings

i like cooking fried eggs and opening windows

while fog still hovers over the sidewalks

i like cleaning and sipping water from a glass

before the world wakes up

i like morning voices and sleepy eyes

i like the patience of mornings

those mornings when you've nowhere to be

or perhaps somewhere, but without panic

i feel happiest during the hours in which

the sky is still waking up from the night

i feel prettiest in the post-sunrise light

golden and warm, or perhaps blue with rain

which may be just as lovely

you should know that i hate afternoons

i hate being in between meals,

hungry but hungrier for a better body

itching all over, hair greasy from touching it constantly

tucking it behind my ears, twisting it in my fingers

feeling warm and sticky and wishing it would pour rain

because then my hair would be wet

and it would be cool on my feverish skin

i hate the monotony, the mediocrity

i hate not knowing what to do with extra minutes

and always wasting them waiting for dusk

you should know that at night i become a monster

i do enjoy nighttime, i think

but i become someone-- something-- entirely new

i cry and rarely know why

i think and think and feel all the things

i somehow wasn't able to feel in daylight

i desperately crave notifications

attention from whichever person

on my mind at the time

it's unfair to them, my fleeting infatuation

but all i want is a feeling, a sensation

and then i move on, and i'm sorry

that i'm this way

but when the sun has long set

so has my optimism

and i think about dying

my mind fixates on the space between

the top of the high school bleachers and the dirt,

the top of a building and the sidewalk

but i know i will wake up in the morning

and wonder how one could ever think about such things

when there is so much beauty in living

i am two different people

every morning, every night

and i am always switching between

back and forth

from dancing to wondering if i even deserve to dance

how do you ask for help when the other half of you is a stranger?