It’s been here
My friends and family have this idea that all of a sudden,
I became filled and teeming with these emotions

Adolescence wakes you up.
It really does.
My body came alive.
My soul found a path and chose a direction.

But where is that bubble?
The one that used to save me from every feeling?
That bubble is gone now
It evaporated.

And now depression and sorrow and heartache and sexual excitement-frustration seem like
All I’m made of.

Then not only was my bubble “popped,”

But also the world that I knew crumbled in on me from the outside.
No more of the dreaded “every other weekend,”
And I never had to go back to the state fair ever if I didn’t want to.

Everyone is dying.

Sam,
My dad,
Polly,
My aunt,
My great grandma,
My grandma (dead to me),
and
the person I used to be

I can see some of my friends dying on the inside
They smile, we fight, we make up
They take care of me.
But I see it
I seem them dying.

I think it’s me.

I think I am killing them
And what’s worse—I don’t know how to stop.