Five Year Plan

By Lauren Hoey

I want to run away to Massachusetts  

To live with my aunt and uncle.  

I want to convert to Catholicism  

So I have an excuse to sit in pretty churches and do all the little rituals. 

 I want to drive into Boston on the weekends  

And cry in the art museum.  

I want to live forever Just so I can read all the books on my list 

I’m tired of feeling sick to my stomach.  

I’m tired of discovering new kinds of fear.  

I’m a tea bag that has steeped for too long. 

 Please, let me breath.  

But who do you ask for help  

When everyone around you is speaking in a foreign language?  

With a cry? With a scream? 

 With a silent sob that wracks your whole body? 

 I have done all of these things And nothing has changed.  

But I am not the same person I was five years ago.