Anxiety and Things that Shatter

Few Notes on Being Me

Hi.
I am seventeen years old.
At least while writing this whatever, yes.
You're probably going to lose interest in
whatever I write from now on--
but I understand.
My age has always been a poem
in a fist fight.

1.
My first name is Samuel.
My father's name is Adeyemi.
Adeyemi means my head is suitable for a crown
and ever since I've known this,
I've spent my life searching for a throne
to make him proud of me.

2.
Actually, 'Clumsy' should've been one of my names too.
I have a serious subconscious disorder
of making things sound worse
than they actually are.
See? I just called my overreacting
a serious subconscious disorder.
I forget more times than my memory can remember.
I am a light switch that triggers neon apologies so brightly--
'I'm sorry' is the easiest flicker I can produce.
I skip not less than one step while climbing,
always.
I suck at math but I am smart enough
to know that odd numbers
make me feel uncomfortable.
I mean, when the year or my age
is not an even number,
my brain believes everything I involve in
is going to crumble.

3.
Time is my greatest enemy,
but I have no plans to lose the battle.

4.
I believe the scariest place
on the entire planet is a dance floor.

5.
When you're the fifth Samuel in the room,
you do not turn when you hear your name.
You know it will never be you.

6.
I am tired of writing about anxiety.
Especially in second person.

7.
It's been ages
since I deliberately wrote a love poem.
I don't think I've ever known how to.
Whenever I write about love I'm mostly against it,
criticizing the way it possesses the heart
and makes the mind blind to reason.
I hesitate admitting to love
because I am afraid of sad endings.
I think way too much about the future
and most times it's a bad thing.

8.
I'm still learning
how to write happy poems.

9.
How did my depression suddenly die?
It didn't--
I picked up my friend's depression and mine, then I held them both up to the light,
and mine didn't cast a shadow--
I buried it alive.
I still hear its knuckles tap the casket.

10.
The sadness would make you think
One More Light is my favorite
Linkin Park album.

11.
To most people,
birthdays mark a reason for celebration.
I was born on the 11th of September.
My birthday is an alarm clock
that reminds me of one of
the most horrific days in American history.
On my seventeenth birthday,
I spent half of the day on YouTube
watching people jump out the windows of the Twin Towers
because they could not bear the heat
of the fire on their skin.
I listened to the last calls and voicemails people sent saying goodbye,
I heard of the couple who held hands
as their bodies dropped down like hard rain
hitting the ground, splattering--
I thought of how powerful it must feel
to choose your own death.
I spent my seventeenth birthday
engulfed in conspiracy theories;
if 9/11 was an inside job,
if there really was a second airplane--
Man, you're not even American.
So while I celebrated my first birthday
with songs and candlesticks,
there was a boy who took flowers
to the grave of his mother in rememberance.
I would someday learn that being happy
on my birthday
is not a sin.

12.
I have prayed to be a different person
more times than I have prayed to be alive.
I have imagined dying
more times than I have imagined death,
imagined suicide but never contemplated.
I believe that there is more to life
than life itself can make us see.
I believe my mother's strength
is one of the closest things to magic;
I know she locks gravity somewhere within her chest.
I know there's a difference
between being timid
and having nothing to offer,
and this ignorance, this void scares me.
I know dreams die faster than a wilting rose;
and sometimes they die
before they are even born.
But I know the future isn't written
with permanent ink,
so our actions can rewrite our fate.
Do you hear that sound
whenever the mirror shows us
our reflections?
Silence.
Silence is the most beautiful song I know.