Maximus D. Redwood

Two more years until
I become an adult.
I don't feel very real and it hurts.
All adults have really done for me was cause harm and—
...

Like many, many years going by, the petals of the pink peony bloom.
Loveless years.
Pinkless fears.
I wonder if this flower of love belongs to me.
...

Long forgotten, but still there.
The ghosts still linger in the back of my mind and pop up only when—
When something is familiar to them.
The ghosts, they flood my senses.
...

I know it is coming.
It is.
The lightning has struck like your realization that—
That I am more than you, more than the chains you bound to me.
...

I have to ask my friends who I am.
They'll have a better answer than me because—
Because I don't know who I am.
My self image flickers like a broken light
...

I have worn this mask for so long.
Maybe it's a part of my face now.
It feels like it.
I don't know—
...

Every scratch they make at me burns like a million flames in my soul.
Every scratch I have made back of them hurt them none,
As if I were just playfully patting paws on them like—
Like some cat not to be taken seriously.
...

Attention.
Attention, I want all of it.
I know it's wrong, but I'd do anything for it.
If you give me it, my mind melts,
...

It is lukewarm, the afterlife.
She is why.
I want Death's warm embrace to—
To take me to a place I truly belong.
...

Reopening the dirty wound to—
To clean it out.
To clear the dirt and infections and orange leaves
From Autumn.
...

For me, eating is a chore.
Yes, I know, it's hard to ignore.
It may be easy for you, but
I'll take one bite, and it—
...

We create our own constellations
And stare at the planets above us all.
I watch you grin in fascination
While we run through the trees, greatly tall.
...

'You'll never do it,
What, you're really that sad? '
I know you think that.
I see it in your face when you see the old markings on my arms.
...

Your gifts, like fires, warm me
But they also burn.
Selfish, I am so selfish to—
To accept them.
...

How many times has this happened to me,
The darkness before I,
Blinding bright stars in my eyes?
First time.
...

Gasoline.
It's in my stomach, mixing in with the acids.
Acids.
I grasp matches, stare at them with my—
...

Dear ARFID,
I know one day you'll kill me.
How blunt of me to say, but—
But apparently it was not blunt enough
...