TO BE HONEST

Rite-aid bathrooms are not nearly as bad as
McDonald’s bathrooms, as a reference
for when you finally decide to run away
from home.
 
In a chat room, she writes,
My suffocation is romanticized in the way
that coffee stains & Chipotle &
mock necks are romanticized.
The flowers in my lungs & veins &
throat are romanticized in the way
that the word “trigger” is romanticized.
 
On a network, she writes,
I don’t text people back,
I’m too busy researching the
correlation
between
sunlight & serotonin.
 
I pack my bags.
She asks me,
“Where are you going?”
and I tell her,
“I don’t know”
& years after caffeine
& epinephrine
& red sweaters,
I come home and she asks,
“Where have you been?”
and I tell her,
“I don’t know.”
 
I realize,
our bathroom smells like hairspray
& dance recitals on
kitchen floors,
like empty mugs of tea &
like a silence we can’t make
any louder.
 
In a chat room, they write,
We are the generation of wanders,
of virtual existences,
of red solo cups & ashtrays.
We are the fire in youth,
the burning in stomachs
and the smoke stinging going down.
 
In a chat room, I write,
They find us,
cursed in skin,
honest in form,
at the bottoms of wells in forests
we cut down long ago,
in shattered magic mirrors
we have neglected for too long.
 
Running away is not as bad as
insomnia in cursed sheets, as a reference
for when you finally decide to stay.




Francesca Wilkin is 18 years old, and lives in Narberth, Pennsylvania. She spends her time reading, completing schoolwork for the IB program, listening to music, fighting sleep deprivation, and contributing to her school’s theater company. Her favorite books include Wuthering Heights, The Golden Compass, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, and A Dream of a Common Language. She loves all genres, but has a soft spot for prose, poetry, and classic fiction. Francesca has been writing since 3rd grade, and she has been published in Philadelphia Stories Teens, Persephone’s Daughters, and her high school’s two literary platforms, the Corinthian and Zenith. She does not plan to stop writing anytime soon.