Please Wake Up.

It's a Thursday.

But it's not just another Thursday.

I've been trying to figure out how I'm feeling or what I'm thinking but it's so hard to decipher between feeling nothing and feeling everything all at once; it's hard to decipher the unlimited questions spinning through my mind from the hollow silence that echoes throughout my brain. 

I'm torn between making sure I remember him but trying to forget the tragedy that's taken place here. I want to remember him, and him, and her, and them... But not like this. I don't want to remember what they did--or how--but I do. And I can't believe how hard I cried in first period. I didn't even know him that well. And it's not like I've never heard my teacher read that letter before. She read almost the same one just under four months ago... It just read a different name. It just had a different date. I think that is the reason this is so hard. It's like a nightmare that we've had over and over and over again, and it hurts a little more each time. 

When are we going to wake up.

I'm starting to fear that we never will. Some people are just heavier sleepers, and no matter how loudly we say their name, or shake them by their shoulders, or pry open their eyelids... They have to choose to wake up.

This is me begging, as someone who just five months ago, didn't want to wake up. This is me begging you to open your eyes. To wake up to a new morning. I'm not asking you to forget what happened to you yesterday, or to forget the terrible nightmare you had last night. I'm asking you to see the sun rise one more day. Trust me, I know it is seemingly impossible--I know that the weights on your eyelids are the heaviest ones you've ever had to carry.

But please, wake up.

It took a few days,

But I woke up.

And it took a few more weeks,

But eventually I was grateful that I did.

Please wake up.

This is a poem I wrote in September... And I think now is a good time to share it.

I found myself drowning

In the oceans of grief,

Struggling to breathe,

But treading water.

I tried to do it

On my own,

But the waves crashed

All around.

The riptide came;

My emotions whiplashed.

I didn't know what to feel,

So I felt it all.

And just as the water

Penetrated my lungs,

A lifeboat came

To pull me out.

The lifeguard struggled;

He called me by name.

"You know how to swim,

I taught you how...

You cannot give up.

The world needs you now."