THE RAVEN REVIEW
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      • Issue I
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • FAQ
  • Submit
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • Volume I >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume II >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume III >
      • Issue I
      • Issue II
      • Issue III
      • Issue IV
    • Volume IV >
      • Issue I

Almost 25

by Giovanni Mangiante
I sit in my lonely, decrepit room
abusing alcohol and chain-smoking cigarettes,
feeling nauseous, thinking about suicide 
two or three times a week,
remembering all the times my parents
asked me to smile, 
and I try to keep it together
one more year for them, for my sister,
and for the dog that now sleeps on my bed.

All these years I wasted
believing I would be okay someday 
now amount to almost 25,
and as the calendar pages are ripped 
without joy,
the darkness under my eyes grows
with no intentions to stop,
the ribs slowly begin to poke through
my pale skin,

and I remember my parents laughing
and I remember myself laughing
and they seem so far away
and everything seems so far away,
trying to keep it together.

Giovanni Mangiante is a poet from Lima, Peru. He has work published in Three Rooms Press, Crêpe & Penn, Fearsome Critters, Open Minds Quarterly, Ghost City Review, Panoply, Impspired, The Beatnik Cowboy, and more. He has upcoming poems in Cajun Mutt Press and Necro Magazine. In writing, he found a way to cope with BPD.