There are places in your skeleton you do not speak fondly of.

Hide them in your closets,
like the mangos in your pantries,
let them rot.
You are not a bumblebee keeper
nor a farmer raised on road kill
so keep the nothing from your pantry,
unplug the refrigerator,
leave the kitchen to the dust
and the barn owls
and the field mice.
Hide your canned goods and caramel jams in the cellar.
Remind your mother where the keys are,
third drawer from the cookie jar,
never unlock it.
There are ghosts down there.
You must promise to never unlock it.
Swear to me you will swallow the key,
that you will never miss the school bus bell.
At show and tell you brought your whole family
dressed as dust mites.
The girl in the third row cried with her eyes closed,
she didn’t believe you that they were only rabbit bones.
On the way home you drank Kool-Aid
through the gap in your front teeth,
laughed at your father’s earring and necktie.
A ghost cross-dressed as your mother
threw herself at the interstate.
Your father hit the breaks like his first wife,
the truck hit your mother like his second.
You bit styrofoam and plastic as the airbags painted
the bucket seat red and chalky.
Thick like your lungs,
nervous like a stillbirth.

“You unlocked the doors,
didn’t you?
You spit the key out,
didn’t you?”

We waste so many days waiting for weekend. So many nights wanting morning. Our lust for future comfort is the biggest thief of life.

1. Do not kill yourself. Killing yourself is very messy and your mother will cry over you. It is not beautiful or brave, and even if it was, you will not be around to see that.

2. Washing your hair is going to be a chore. But you should do it anyway. Because you will feel better about yourself.

3. Get up late. Have a lay in. Sleep past your alarm. You have a very long life ahead of you and for now you should appreciate the cold side of your pillow.

4. He is going to break your heart but he’s just another male human who finds it hard to deal with Mondays, too. So in a month you’ll wake up and you won’t even remember that little scar on his knuckle you kissed.

5. Don’t spend hours looking up what your name means on google. Your name is your name and you should go out there and do heroic and good deeds and give your name your own meaning.

6. Don’t fight your demons. Your demons are here to teach you lessons. Sit down with your demons and have a drink and a chat and learn their names and talk about the burns on their fingers and scratches on their ankles. Some of them are very nice.

7. Music is good for your soul. Rap music will energise you and boost your ego and pop music will cheer you up. Indie music will make you think and emotional songs will make you cry and think about that boy again. It’s healthy.

8. Victim complexes are not attractive. Boys and girls will not date you because you are sad. They are not going to date you and kiss your aching bones and cure you of your dragging depression. Wake up. Take a bath. Do your hair. Be attractive.

9. Sadness is not poetic. Depression is not beautiful. Laying in bed all day and eating too much is lazy and disgusting and it is not tragic or pretty. Get up. Go outside. Let the sun warm your bones. Live.

10. If it makes you happy, buy twenty of it. Dedicate your life to it. Print it on tv shirts and collect things and draw art of it. Do not care what people think. They are the unhappy people you need to avoid. The abuse they will hurl at you is painless compared to how sad they are. Pity them. Remain happy.

11. You are allowed to he angry. But the world is not working against you. The flowers do not bloom for you and when your mother shouts ask her if she is okay instead of thinking she hates you. She never will. The world walks beside you and is silent. It does not trip you up or carry you.

12. Day and night cycles are natural. Humans only sleep at night because we used to avoid predators in the dark because of our poor eyesight. Stay awake until 5am watching bad reality shows. Wake up at 7pm and have breakfast.

13. Eat when you are hungry. Being bored does not constitute a chocolate bar. Sleep with you are tired. Do not mindlessly obey the sleep at night rule. If you are not tired, do not sleep.

I crave to be held, touched,
loved, wanted, so I push you
away because I want it far
too much. That little, needy
child inside of me with
outstretched arms and
tearstained cheeks is
the scariest, darkest
part of me.

Young girls need to learn that sexiness isn’t about being naked.