TW: implied SH

~~~

Did you hear about that snob in your maths class?

You sneaked a look at his paper:

the glaring 99, ink red like a flesh wound,

like his glazed-over, taciturn eyes.

He called it a fail

and, with eyes on the floor,

snapped his rubber band like a whip.

You say the kid's got brains but in that moment

he is skin and skeleton. Ribs

cracked to splinters,

because now that he cannot be perfect,

pretty's second-best.

He's not cut out for beauty,

but if he works himself to the jagged edge

the serrations could carve out a way for him —

To life or to Hades he doesn't know,

but either's okay.

He's drenched himself in hubris—

5180 days of gasping for breath.

He's learnt to breathe in the floods like oxygen,

So now when he chokes on his own expectations

There's comfort in the screaming of his lungs.

If he cannot use the pen that he prides himself in,

and answers stop flowing from his fissured, fevered mind,

can you blame him for turning to sharpeners?

With pointed graphite, he is finally an artist;

He can risk the imperfection if it's underneath his sleeves.

When he dies from his obsession they will call it a disease

But in the end,

This is all he's ever been.

~~~

(4*366)+(10*365)+66