Sensitive as a weathervane to winds of emotion around you,
is it any wonder you had to make peace to find peace in yourself?
So engrossed by worlds of imagination and flights of fancy,
you would read in every quiet moment and scribble wishes in margins.
Uprooted as a sapling and replanted in unfamiliar soil,
lonely you, locked in the solitary confinement of peripheries.
So certain of a future you wanted in service and duty like Mom,
craving meaning and belonging as a part of bigger things.
You wandered outdoors making up stories or played soccer
with the few people you were brave enough to approach.
So much of it then was playing pretend even before
the specter of Death came and darkened your door. 

An anatomy of things you were at sixteen,
or perhaps more correctly, a post mortem:

A mind as sharp as the razorblades turned on your own flesh,
winning arguments in debate class as a sort of ceramic mask.
You craved approval from the adults around you in school,
though half your essays were late and tear-stained. 
And the friends who you’d managed to make, you always kept
well at arm’s length in case they noticed something was wrong. 
So certain of that first love you felt for your childhood friend,
never thinking that in a few years it’d be burning itself to the ground. 
You stayed up late on weekends to made up games and stories,
because playing a character was easier than talking as yourself. 
So much of it then was playing pretend even after 
the specter of Death came and built himself a home. 

An anatomy of things you were at twenty-one,
or perhaps more correctly, a post mortem:

You struggled so hard against the buffeting storms of emotions,
how could it be a surprise that you felt without a center?
You needed to excel in classes just to prove to yourself
something inside was worth keeping alive another day. 
But strangling secrets had already dug roots so deep down,
not even a 4.0 could save you from self-starvation. 
And to the person you wanted to love you the most,
you didn’t have the words to admit that something was wrong. 
He’d talk about future and you’d nod along numbly,
because you wouldn’t see even five minutes in front of your nose. 
So much of it then was playing pretend, especially after
the specter of Death had made off with your sense of self. 

And now where you’re standing on an island built out of sand,
age twenty-nine, but still in so many ways caught like a rat in a trap:
post mortem, at thirteen, at sixteen, at twenty-one...