Rejection

I don't understand why it hurts so much.
How words on paper, that looks like any other ordinary paper: could find its way into my skin and boil to froth, and have it stream down my cheeks in the form of tears.

I don't understand why it hurts so much,
why it hurts at all
why it is even here at all.


From a young age I was told that wanting something was good enough. That wishing was good and working for that wish--- that wish would come true.

I should have learned then
that pulling out all the eyelashes in the world and wishing
and wishing
wouldn't make it true.

There is a big difference from earning something and wanting something.
To earn is to achieve.
To work hard in the endless night
not knowing the end or the way out
but still digging and digging
deeper into that mountain is to reach.
Digging until you have reached a core
a physical core
something you can hold in your hand
something that you can boil down to a science
a liquid
and drink it into your body
and possess.

You can't boil rejection.
Rejection is not a core.
Rejection is a weight.
A weight that ties you to the end of your bed
forcing your eyes open and scared
to stare at the endlessness of that tunnel
that tunnel that you were digging and digging and digging
and you're half way through that mountain
trapped under the cloth of darkness
with no direction
and no going back or forward
just---there
at the edge of that bed and a piece of paper.


There are quiet a few people in the word.
The optimist that sees the glass half full,
The pessimist that sees the glass half empty,
The opportunist that drinks the other half of the glass,
and the realist---who realizes that  a glass is a glass
and water is just water
and rejection is just rejection.


I don't know who I am.

Maybe that is the problem.
Maybe the problem is not the letter
Perhaps it is me.

I don't understand.

I don't understand and I don't understand why I don't want to understand.

What I want to know is that tub of ice cream in the freezer,
I want to know the bed sheets that I will wrap around me like the skin on my back
and the bed that I will drown in  and never emerge from....


This is a crappy poem.
Or essay, or whatever this lament
this dragging on depression is.

I don;t understand it.

I reject it.

It isn't good enough---
I don't understand why I am not good enough.


Of course life goes on.
It always goes on, I just don't know if it iwll be a good one.

after all, this paper of words is only a diction of my future.
My inevitable continuation of my education
and my education is my future
my education is all that I have.


I am afraid.
Deathly afraid  that once I leave school
Once I abandon my textbooks and classes
my teachers and my peers
that I will fade to a background
that I will work 9 to 5
and yes and no a customer
that I will not understand questions when they are asked to me
That I will not know the answer to how much that salad plate is
or what time the next bus is at
That I will not know why I do not know these answers
that an entire generation and education will wash over my skin and leave me dry.

I want to dip my feet
I want to dive in
but I am so scared---
I am so scared to look down and see that the pool is empty.


My pool is empty.



And I don't understand why.