Siena Ho

a comprehensive guide to growing pains

(CW: one line of suicidal idealization)

stare at a screen. draw circumcircles around jugulars. draw the circumstances of failure and realize you can’t take any. rationalize this by wanting more: you call this unlimited resources. your friends call it self harm. in a way, you solved the basic economic problem, but you still can’t solve your grandmother’s anger without fluoxetine. work harder on that. blame yourself, because you can and it’s definitely easier than looking back, but you never know where you’re looking at anymore: eighteen promises you the world, yet the world depends on who you are now, which is too late in the morning, which is everything you hold your judgment against. cry after 3 shots. break up with the boy who took pictures of all the stars for you to wish on. you wish he carries the pieces of yourself you lost along the way, and that he hates you, so you’ll feel less jealous of every star who had the honor of being shot by him. resort back to writing poetry. you’re doing that right now. anything you do, do not cry over analyses of novels and plays and texts, because emotions are tangible and important motifs and these are the things you cannot lose. sort out your life in alphabetical order. find out that regret tastes better with bacardi, that you’re 30 years too early to be worrying about worrying, that inequations only come from badly drawn circles. forget the forevers you saw in that one boy. convince yourself that you’re not bad at making decisions, just good at making bad decisions, because growing up is just an absolute fuckfest, it hurts, and everywhere that hurts promises to hurt more -

when i eulogize time, i hope it’s everything i promised to kill myself for.