last night I went to bed early

Last night I went to bed early

I woke up to screaming texts and crying silence

Last night I went to bed early

And I've never regretted anything more

This morning I told my mom that another boy had committed suicide

And I felt broken

For him

For all of those before him

For the fact that the words Another and Suicide have become attached

So attached

Too attached

I've been told there’s opposition in all things. 
Yin and Yang.

As good things become better, bad things become worse

But lately I feel like good things should stay where they are,

hit the brakes,
slow it down,

if that means less bad, less suicide.

Suicide is a cycle and lone peak is on round 11 and we’re all tearing, straining, sweating trying to stop the wheel, but

It

                  Just

    Keeps

                             Spinning

Spinning towards shattered hearts, melting minds and collapsing lungs.

Bruised knees

Two hour long, please-help-me-and-them-and-her, prayers worth of bruised knees

But bruises fade from purple to yellow to flesh and I promise you, hearts heal too.

I promise you, I will spend every moment by your side if that’s what it takes for you to decide to stay

I promise you hundreds of others would do the same

I promise you that clouds are nothing more than water vapor and they too will clear.

And I’m trying to find you,

The ones with the taped hearts and stitched bones

But my gps is malfunctioning and this map is ripped in three places

And I just don’t feel qualified.

I don’t have any letters of recommendation to send to God with my prayers when I’m asking to be guided to tape and stitches

But I still ask.

I still ask.

And I feel like I should work on complimenting people’s hearts more than their hair because everyone knows hair grows back when it’s cut

There’s a thousand things I need to work on
And

I’m trying to convince myself that that’s ok

That adjustments are part of the procedure 

I’m trying to tell myself that tomorrows exist for a reason.

That tomorrows are for Betters and Try-harders.

They’re for clearer skies

Warmer eyes 

Overcoming trials

Truer smiles

But for him, the tomorrows stopped coming

And for that reason,

I think,

we all need to live for the tomorrows he left behind

And make them worth as much as we possibly can

For him. 

F. Sharpe

life comes with a brick

Life comes with a brick.

It was part of the coupon your parents used to get you here.

No returns

No exchanges

Just a brick.

                       

Mine was crumbled on the right top corner when I picked it up

Had a 7^th grade scratch

A heartbreak chip

Yours is just a little bit larger than everyone else’s. And theirs has two holes while hers has three

His is rougher than usual.

Our parents taught us that holes were ok and crumbles were beautiful.

Just like parents are suposed to.

In fifth grade we had a show-and-tell day and

that’s the last time I can remember everyone being proud of their bricks.

When we were under 4 feet tall there were shows and songs and rhymes and riddles and 2 million different heat activated color changing motivational pencils (remember those?) that reminded us 

every brick was great.

Because all bricks are different

When we grew closer to 6 feet tall there were shows and songs and rhymes and riddles and 2 million different Yahoo articles and googled how-tos that reminded us that 

every brick was not great.

Because all bricks are different.

And once for three months I believed my brick was worthless. I drove up a road behind 7 other people considered the “figured-it-outs” and hair-flipped, drop-kicked my brick out the window.

They convinced me that holding onto it would make me another cemented down brick in the wall.

And they had a point

because millions of bricks all together tend to look repetitive

But they

                I

                    we

were missing the point.

Because that crumble in the top right corner

That seventh grade scratch

That heartbreak chip

Those things were me.

They were my grocery list, must-learns of life

Things designed specifically for me to learn

And I’m doing all that I can to search that pile of “not-good-enoughs” to find my crumbled, scratched, chipped block of something

Because this wall can’t be built without me

And I think that makes my brick pretty significant.

(In a beautifully insignificant kind of way)

F. Sharpe

nighttime thinking

Last night I stayed up and talked to the stars and listened to the mountains.

They told me to live. 

To live and to unchain myself from cords that run nowhere meaningful.

They whispered for me to create

Create memories that weigh as much as gold.

But are worth so much more

Last night I stayed up and talked to the stars and listened to the mountains.

They reminded me that 

I’m doing fine

I’m doing fine

I’m doing fine

They made me tell myself that my whole-hearted efforts are superior to my half-successful results.

They made me engrave it in my lungs so every breath would be a reminder.

Last night I stayed up and talked to the stars and listened to the mountains.

They showed me a 2 for 1 deal that allowed happiness and reality to co-exist.

A place where 

smiles aren't forced 

and 

interests aren't mass-produced.

The stars told me that sometimes you have to step back to see that you’re part of something bigger

The mountains told me the ones that care the most to see the world the way you do will be the ones willing to climb.

And after hours of nighttime listening

I decided to work for five star days.

Days of happy

I’m talking about the happy that comes from head-out-the-sun-roof-jamming and the stop-it-I’m-dying stomach pain laughing.

The days when your phone is on full and your body is on empty.

The days when the stars and the mountains no longer have to remind you to be you. 

F. Sharpe

hey diddle diddle

One time I took a whole month to feel full. 

And that’s when I met the moon. He taught me that half-fulls and three-quarter-empties
were ok.                       

Were ok.                    
It’s ok.

Moon has been my word-of-the-day for the past four months.

It’s been my side margin sketch

My morning time stretch

The more time I spent with the moon, the less appealing sun kissed skin felt. I craved sparkling eyes and low lit conversations. 

Spent days waiting for nights.

Nights that felt;

Felt like brain apprehending, mind capturing eclipses

and spur of the moment, imperfectly perfect ellipses.

Star gazing turned moon watching.

And my smile was simply a reflection of the moon’s almost new phase.

Waxing              Waning

People always use him as a mark of love. People tell one another they love them to the moon and back.

But I always wanted something larger than a distance, something more three-dimensional.

I needed something that would stick by my side and it only took me a while to realize all the moon could do was spin. And he wasn’t willing to try anything else.

Wasn’t willing to do anything but

Spin

Spin

Spin

Spin

And that spinning turned into slammed doors, stained cheeks, sleepless nights

His beams creeped through my window on the hardest of nights begging to help, but when I asked him to stay still with me for a while he ran away and hid.

The moon wasn't what I needed,

Wasn't being what I asked for.

And I wished for that to change. I wished for him to change orbit and circle my heart,

but hearts aren't play dough.

Not even the moon’s.

When I told the moon the reason I couldn’t keep sky gazing he laughed and said he didn’t understand why spinning was wrong. And I guess it’s not.

But it’s just that I’ve been on my head for the past two weeks and the blood is starting to hurt and he has no sense of direction, no traces of a pharmaceutical degree when it comes to prescribing something to mend heartaches.

I mean how could he? He’s just the moon.

And I realized that, as much as I cared about his bumps and craters, I was in love with the light.

Perhaps the cow who jumped over the moon was too.

And maybe the cow who jumped over the moon, jumped because he was trying to capture the beams. Just like me.

But any amount of reaching and jumping and stretching won’t help either of us to bottle up that light or change the way the moon is.

 

All we will find is an upside down surface.

That knows nothing but spinning.

Because the light,

it’s nothing more than a reflection.

F. Sharpe

to the six who taught me love

I knew more about the color of One’s eyes than I did his life. But that was sophomore year and I think everyone knew I wasn't ready to handle a whole lot more than colors and eyes. 10^th grade is long gone though, and now I know 
your heart is gold and 

your words are clear and 

your intentions are silver.

Yet, those are still colors and I wish that they would start turning into something more.

But then I met Two

He was the first one to kiss my cheek and make me feel pretty and give me butterflies. It took me a whole year to realize that he had that effect on every girl he met. And it wasn't his fault. He just had bigger heart and whiter smile than he could help, but he also didn't seem to care to change the way it broke hearts. 

And that much was his fault.

And then Three came along.

He gave me so much grief that I started to convince myself that we were in sixth grade again

because he told me he liked me somewhere in between all that grief

because one of the seven things I learned in elementary school is that the mean ones are the same ones that would risk cooties for you.

But once I met his Grief and sent it on its way, he introduced me to his Humor and Passions and his love for his 2^nd youngest sister and my 3^rd youngest brother and that was so much better.

Next was Four.

He swept me off my feet so quickly I didn't even realize that he was type A. And I've never known my type. 

But I do know it’s not type A. 

But he gave me a rose once and it was on a hard day. And roses on hard days are't something that ever really deserve to be forgotten.

But last summer I was introduced to Five and within a day I added three “future-husband-must-haves” to my list. Which was followed by 7 new found pet peeves. But you had dimples and that pretty much balanced out any amount of pros and cons.

And Six asked me to dance at the last stag dance. He’s never liked/loved me and I've never liked/loved him. But he spun me twenty one times in a single song and I smiled for the next three

And when he spun me twenty one times in a single song and made me smile for the next three he taught me more than what some of those boys could have taught me in a year. Because at the end of that song I fell in love with a lot of things and a lot of feelings.

And in the moment my Heart was introduced to silver intentions and pretty feelings and 2^nd youngest sisters and roses and dimples, 

she locked them away and 

threw out the key.

And she just won’t seem to let me forget how badly I need to end up with someone who will spin me 21 times in one song and make me smile for the next three. 

F. Sharpe

spelling test

I learned shoes when I was 1 1/2 and daddy when I was 1 3/4 and he’ll never let it go that he came second.

I learned pencils and take home reading and homework when kindergarten started and snack-time and recess and pack up when kindergarten ended

The word hope came when the Easter Bunny still came when my parents were out of town

Because that meant he was real and I wasn't quite done being a kid

Self-conscious when I started at a school with more gossip than monkey bars

Confused when sticks and stones started sounding like cotton compared to the words you were throwing around

Quiet when words meant tears

Happy when 2^nd period meant talking to you

Worry when I realized my parents were fighting over things bigger than bills

Heartache when I learned the girl next to me wasn’t just skipping meals

And again 

when suicide started to feel familiar

And just last winter I learned the word inadequate and how badly I wanted you to feel otherwise

And still

after years and years of words and lists and wrongs and rights

I can’t seem to find a way to fill the screaming silence of these empty nights.

F. Sharpe

mechanics

There are some who wish to turn my
thoughts into formulas
joints into gears
veins into wires

They wish for my body to become a mess of metal and screws and for me to become a robotic mess of emotionless sounds

But I am not a robot.

And if you tell me you don't feel anything remotely human about my pounding heart and pulsing blood when I start talking about,

my hate of cantaloupe,

my 41 (and counting) passions,

my ill fitting indispensable 7-year-old shirt,

my fear of undeserved "I love you"s,

then I'm sorry.
But.

You are the one with the mechanical heart.

F. Sharpe

trapped

We've been at this school for 38 football games, 7 ACTs, 33 assemblies, 8 car accidents, 1032 attendance schools, and 4 heart breaks.

Not the kind that come from cute boys with ugly lies.

No.

The kind that come after the six weekends of texting and following and trying. Trying so hard that you don’t even remember why you wanted to be friends with them in the first place.

But they post cool pictures. And they eat in the commons. And they talk like their lives couldn't be better.

And you want that. You want it so badly that you might be willing to have terrible weekends and worse self-esteem for it. And hours and hours of feeling lonely in a crowded room. And you worry till you can’t focus on anything other than their thoughts, actions, words.

Because why would we ever even realize that you can see clearly through the library window when everyone at the knight is dressed so well.

And you walk with your head down in the halls and convince yourself that people eating alone wouldn't want you to say hello anyways.

But you’re wrong. Because that girl in the green shirt that you just passed sits on her knees every night praying.

For someone to have the courage to say hello

For the mornings spent wringing out her pillow to end.

For high school to stop feeling so much like hell.

And that is who needs you today. And tomorrow. And that is someone worth stressing for.

Because in 5 years the knight will still be there. Trapped.

But that girl in the green is going somewhere. And you’re going to help her get there. 

F. Sharpe