I Think I'm A Mean Person Poem by Cat Singh

I think I'm a mean person.
I think this because of the way I talk.
I talk like no one is listening,
like I am a machine with emotions
who cannot see or hear anyone else
around me.
I talk like a wind turbine.
I talk like an elementary teacher
on a power trip.
I talk like a person who's lost hope.

There is a website called Lost All Hope
that lays out suicide methods and statistics.
And when we were in high school, my boyfriend
and I walked around town holding hands,
swinging them back and forth
like a wrecking ball between us.
I held my phone up to my face, Lost All Hope
glowing into my eyes, and I read aloud
all the ways I could die by my own hand.
"Could you stop? " he said,
"You're so loud. I don't want
the whole neighborhood
to know you want to kill yourself."

I kept reading and talking
and using my hurt as a weapon.
I talked like a rifle.
I talked like the boom
of something
large and untold.