The number you have dialed is not in use, please try again later.

Wrong.

This is wrong, it's all wrong.

We're not meant to be like this, standing on roadsides watching cars run past like they've got lives while you scuff your sneakers in the sand and try to tell yourself you're not crying.

Because I'm not supposed to be crying; Not for the time I don't have, and the conversations I can't hear and the red tints of dawn that I always miss because I'm still on the train for two and a half minutes too long.

I'm not supposed to feel so broken while doing something that has always held me together, I'm not supposed feel like I can't catch up with myself. Because how long is it going to be before I finally can, and when I do, I'd rather punch myself in the nose because I think I'd need a little bit of physical brokenness to understand the sharp edges of the pieces inside me.

If my life is only on suspension, why does it feel like I need to be expelled?

Why do my fingers know better how and what to say while my lips bite down on themselves lying, breaking, bleeding?

Sometimes I feel like I cannot do this.

I can't look at clocks and keep crying, can't look at people and keep counting, counting, counting-

The places they hold tension in as they speak, the times the corner of their left eye twitches when they're fibbing, how many hours I have left to be here with them, how many hours I have left to sleep, to wake, to sit through until I can go back to staring at a clock and will the hands to move slower, how many minutes faster I took for my run, how many minutes I have left to get to class, how many calories before I remember what a bad habit it is to count them.

To count at all.

And if math was never my best subject, I shouldn't be starting now.

If the number I've dialed isn't in use, I don't see why I should try again later. Because if it isn't anymore, then I don't think anyone's coming back to it.

And maybe I'm not coming back to me, maybe I won't, maybe I never will.

And I am afraid of that because I never understood the concept of denying yourself. Except it's all that's being asked of us now.

But to of course, embrace the fact that you can't learn to fly before you've got wings

so.

What am I supposed to do, really?

How long is this going to happen for,

because I'm not meant to be standing by roadsides watching cars run past like they've got lives while I scuff my sneakers in the sand and try to tell myself I'm not crying.