Summer Breaks

i blame the summer breaks, 

lemonade & italian ices, 

every tug of war & jump rope 

for every misery i've felt. 

if you can find the anchor of 

a drowning sailboat, if you 

can find the first wing that 

fluttered—i can't tell you 

how many times i caught 

myself sinking from the weight 

of my own head, yanked upside 

down like the girl that once did 

handstands for fun. i used to 

close my eyes when others kissed, 

pray i'd be the last to bleed. 

you could find me glued to the 

mattress, gazing at the blurry 

pixels instead of the sunsets. 

how many moms and dads 

wish they could fill a jar with 

their child's wonder & keep 

it on their bedside table for 

remembering later. let me 

explain—i am tired of missing 

those summers, tired of wishing 

to wish. anyone could flip a coin 

to see who'd wither first & i'd be 

both heads and tails. & as much as 

i'd like to sleep it off, i'd rather dig 

into my own body to pull my years 

out, lose my tongue to forget what 

age tastes like. it is the epitome of 

misery, draped between birth and 

ending, & i'm in the sag, held up 

by both ends, like arms desperately 

trying to pull me out.

There's Something About Skyscrapers 

leaning over you that says, 

come steal the sky with me, 

let's do something together for once. 

but every time it beckons me, i wait 

too long and the moment crumbles.

this evening, i felt the sky shatter 

and it looked painfully beautiful, bursting red. 

i thought about all the times you asked me 

to come home and i didn't, so one day you 

pierced the sky without me. 

i hope it didn't hurt, the way you bled 

onto the city. crimson glass facades, maroon 

rooftops, sharpened in color by the minute. 

how magnificent you looked. you, gloriously 

burning the skyline on your own. 

it should've been me up there with you

k.p.fen is a poet, engineer, and mental health advocate. She often ponders about her purpose in life, but also recognizes that there could be multiple purposes. She hopes that one of those purposes is to write and be a voice for those suffering from mental illness. Her first poetry collection And All Things Fragile was self-published in 2021. Find her on Instagram at @inkdroplets.