She painted her nails
some shade she hoped
reflected her personality,
and she thought it wasn't
  honest that they weren't
chipped yet.

Her parents sat on a couch
that slumped around the
  middle, gathering the mass
of her parents,
  maybe the mass of her world.

And they yelled at this
boxed television; a t.v. so
******* strange you had to
  swear, swear, swear
you were stuck in 1997.

1997, our year of Jordan:
a unisex name that bled
'I am the same and name of
some place I'll never go;
so place I'll never be big as.'

And our Jordan looked
  at her nails; and she
looked at them again, walking
to her campus, thinking,
"It's not honest that these
are not chipped."

But she had dreams, or
something close to what
a dream used to be.
She didn't want to admit
she had the American Dream;
a dream that millions had,
because the odds of compet-
-ition didn't intimidate her;
she was bothered by the thought
  of sharing something with
millions of people she would
pass on by, asking for nothing,
not even the acknowledgement
  that, yes, we are all in this
together, and to **** each other.

You see, this isn't a normal thing,
Jordan Racer-Cameron would
throw-up all over the waves
bouncing towards the ears of
those girls -- you know -- who
sat around the edge of standard
  cafeteria tables; those girls with
perfect nail polish; those guys that
would write **** like this.

"You see, this isn't a normal thing,"
she vomited out, holding her phone,
"It's cracked but I am not. Every one
will think I am damaged -- but I am
so, so, so not ******* damaged.
I am not broken. There is no way
I can be broken. Ah, no; I wanna
live in Los Angeles. I don't want
to be some broken, fake wolf."

When she flopped home,
passing perfect green squares
surrounded by perfect white teeth,
she tripped, kinda fell, and kinda
  caught herself.   Raising her hand,
on her knees, under a coal dust sky,
she rose her hand before the burning fire,
smiling at the blood splitting her finger;
smiling at the middle nail's fragmented being.

She ****** the blood off,
feeling free of the prose,
found her home,  
and greeted her
   potatoes of parents.