Riddle

I have a riddle for you,
three year old self.
Who will you be when you are older?
I know from my parents that you’ll say Spiderman,
but I- I know differently.
I know you.
I know that you will grow up mostly happy,
but you are different,
three year old self.
I know that others will find that you talk too much
-that you’re simply too much-
and I want to tell you that you’re more than you’ll ever know
more than they’ll ever be able to handle.  
It will take all your life to learn the colors of the rainbow
though for some reason, you will like red the best
when it drips down your arms.
 
I have a riddle for you
thirteen year old self.
Ten years ago you wanted to be spiderman
and now you want nothing more than to be dead.
But I- I know differently.
I know that you-
your eyes are a storm
and your voice is a hurricane,
and kid, you’ll move mountains with them-
even if nobody cares about it now.
You will invent friends to go to tea parties
that you hold inside your head.
There will be blood spatters on the china
and there will be scars on your arms-
and you’ll want to string yourself up in the closet.
I know that you are clinically depressed
even if you don’t know it
even if your parents won’t say it.
Thirteen year old self
with the pills clenched in your hand
not knowing that an overdose of Ibuprofen
doesn’t make people die.  
 
I have a riddle for you,  
reflection in the mirror.
ten days ago you wanted to be dead  
and I don’t know that tomorrow you won’t be.
Because you - you landed yourself in the psych ward for a night
and a day
wearing a bloody knife and a bloody neck
like last year’s summer collection.
Stars don’t fall unless you cut them away
from the black fabric of the night sky-

-Helen Brimstin