DEATH Poem: Past Fifteen, by Jay Jenkinson

At seven years old,
I mimic my classmates,
Pencil etching across my desk,
connecting the dots.
I copy the lines they draw:
How to talk, how to be.
Mine don’t look the same.

The proclamation:
“I don’t want to play with you.
You’re weird.”
The punishment:
playground banishment.

At ten years old,
I start to agree.
I’m unappetizing.
I’m too sour.
I try to disguise lime
with piles of sugar,
but they’ve made up their minds.

I shred my old sketchbooks.
I don’t need a reminder
of how I’m made wrong.

At twelve years old,
I decide I’ll hate them too
I decide I’ll hate me too
I decide I’ll have three years left
before I crumple
and end this.

I slice into that key lime pie.
It’s the only way to sustain me,
as my jaw finally snaps
around my own flesh.

I can’t stop.
I hack into that pie
then pick at the scabs,
as sickly-sweet wafts out
and blood turns to scars
turns to blood.

At thirteen years old,
for some reason,
I let the pie cool,
and I stay here.
I don’t know why.

I pour over pages,
fished out from the trash,
graphite gashes carving through them.
I try to make my lines beautiful.
I don’t know how.

I try showing off my art.
Unexpected compliments stab me,
critique snaps me.
Learned hate commands me
to snap back.

At fourteen years old,
I still draw ugly, wrong,
unique.
Maybe I’m not supposed
to trace someone else’s lines
and expect to fit inside.

I will stay.
No matter what or why or how.

I haven’t cut
that pie in ages.
A notched crust surrounds
lime on full display.
Because it didn’t deserve
to be hidden.

At fifteen years old
Hate fades.
My line
meets a line
meets a line
and they understand each other.

I finally see myself
living past fifteen
and the pie tastes sweet.