I wish I was good at being myself
I spend my day overanalyzing videos, trying to understand what everyone does and I don’t
I try to find new ways of being myself while looking into others
I wish I was good at being a girl
Good at keeping my hair brushed
Good at keeping myself beautiful and available
I wish I could stop
Stop dreaming of running away
I wish I could stop feeling rage in every finger, it hurts to touch the ones I love with so much scorn in my hands
I wish I could be here without wishing to be there and away from where I am
I wish I could stop
Stop the madness in my head, the run on sentences that sprint laps around the person standing infant of me
I think thats why I’m bad at being a girl
I'm not the good kind of girl
Not the kind of girl who loves, I obsess
Not the kind of girl who savors life, I just try everything at once
The kind who runs when she needs to rest
I wish I could stop and simply be a girl
Nov 20, 2023
Nov 20, 2023 at 4:17 AM UTC
Purple like bruises
purple like the end of the day
Purple like my cool pencil that I never got back in grade school and think about when I walk past the school supply aisle
Purple like it hurts
When the swelling goes down and you can see the it for what it is
Purple reminds me of you
No
Purple like bruises that hurt but don’t remember how they got there
Purple like that pencil I eventually forgot about
Purple like the last color in the sky before it goes dark
Apr 29, 2023
Apr 29, 2023 at 11:02 PM UTC
Words spill out of me, overflow of emotions, I feel like I’m only words
Only confusion
Only incorrect syntax and tolerable grammar
It hurts you know,
To be so full and feel so empty
a pit that is never full, and grows when you feed it
Overflow of words
Overflow of unlovable thought
Overflow of me
It hurts you know
Mar 3, 2022
Mar 3, 2022 at 6:58 PM UTC
I feel so lost and trapped again. every turn is a wrong one
never enough space to breath or understand or talk
it’s upsetting that this is what it comes to sometimes
I need more, I need less, I need something
i feel so out of touch with myself, it’s makes things uncertain
but only for those who count on me to be blind
turn
turn
turn again
it’s always a wrong turn,
maybe it’s more of a circle and we are simply getting dizzy
Jan 26, 2022
Jan 26, 2022 at 2:27 AM UTC
she makes me look her in the eyes before she asks me questions.
she thinks she can tell whenever I'm not being truthful. the only thing I hope she sees is hurt. I hope she can see how badly I wish she'd just be honest with me. she says she can tell whenever I lie, she says I can't lie. but why would I when this is the only life I will live at one time and if I ever lived another, I can't remember.
lie detector.
I'm not telling the truth until I'm so overwhelmed with defeat that my eyes slowly push tears from my eyes, like a string of pearls.
I didn't know lie detectors could make you question your psyche's interpretation of everything you knew about them, about yourself.
Jul 3, 2020
Jul 3, 2020 at 2:51 AM UTC
doubt: as tiny as a mustard seed that grows a sequoia in your diaphragm.
its branches growing leaves in your lungs, making every breath you take rustle in your throat, further restricting your breathing day by day. doubt is killing you. doubt makes your stomach turn every morning and night when your mind is most tired, vulnerable, empty.
growing until its roots are attached to your bones and it becomes what wakes you up every day before the sun rises just to think about it. just to feel its weight on your body, sinking you further and further into the floor. before you know it, there is no more soul. there is no more you. you have been replayed with this flourishing sequoia tree of doubt, that when it sheds its leaves, and it is no longer present, you will never remain the same. the bowls of your soul will remain deep and echo. doubt has changed you. your lungs are empty, brittle, and ache. doubt has left you tired, vulnerable, empty.
Jul 3, 2020
Jul 3, 2020 at 2:18 AM UTC
"Shhh..." and just like that all of my anxieties are swept away at the same time she tucks my hair behind my ear.
"We'll figure this out," she says, without even saying a word. Her eyes bring me all the comfort I'll ever need.
"Trust me" say her hands as she holds mine and brushes the back of my palms with her thumbs. Soft, and full of light, I find calmness.
Her eyes tell me so much more than words could even convey and I guess that's where the magic is. That's where the stillness lies. That's where my peace is.
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 6:48 PM UTC
If you were ever to kiss me, I think the world would stop spinning.
My stomach would jump up into my throat and suffocate me.
My heart would explode out of my chest and lay on the ground, still beating furiously.
My limbs would go stiff, and I’d be frozen to the concrete.
My lungs would collapse, but I’d still be able to breathe, because your kiss would be the only oxygen I’d need.
Feb 11, 2019
Feb 11, 2019 at 2:09 PM UTC
"you're really pretty for a black girl"
I swallow that backhanded complement hard.
I can feel the shards of glass that came with it.
"you're pretty for a black girl" feels like beauty isn't synonymous with being black.
"you're pretty for a black girl" feels like passing a test I don't remember signing up for and I should be grateful I passed without preparation.
"you're pretty for a black girl" does not mean you're pretty. that means you're pretty by exception, and not because you just are.
and that's not a compliment.
"you're pretty for a black girl" I hear them say it for the last time.
I clench the hem of my shirt , look them straight in the eye and say without missing a beat, "No. I'm just pretty."
Feb 7, 2019
Feb 7, 2019 at 11:51 AM UTC
I never even knew I was different. And by different I mean not white.
My mom has green eyes and light skin with freckles. She has brown hair that beautifully sprouts white strands sometimes, but she's never not beautiful. Or never not has green eyes, or light skin with freckles.
I have brown skin. No freckles, and eyes that look like almonds that didn't make it into the bag, in shape and color. My skin is dry. Except my face. My skin is more than one shade of brown, especially on my face. My skin is stretched. Never been tight. My skin reminds me of a potato, not so much "cafe con leche" like my nana says.
I grew up in this white town, with white people, and white expectations. I was never allowed not to act like a child because children of color are barely seen as children. I was never allowed to run or yell like the white kids on the playground because that made me look like I hadn't been "raised right".
I could never sit on the lunch benches outside like the other kids because the yard-ladies would only see my brown skin in the sea of whiteness and only tell me to not sit there.
I could never struggle in academics because that meant my hispanic mother didn't invest in my "academic success" and CPS would show up and ask me questions about whether my mom loved me or not. My mom worked three jobs, and saw us for less than three hours a day. she worked so she could invest in our success.
I couldn't say I was hungry because that meant my family was too poor and couldn't feed me. And then have CPS show up and ask to see the fridge. [I wasn't actually hungry, it's just that by the time I was 7 I had developed an eating disorder because I had no idea how to cope with anxiety].
I could never not listen to authority because it wasn't teenage rebellion, it would qualify me for special behavior programs targeted towards "troubled youth" and we all know that's code for "kids of color who won't make it past without being put in jail, being ***** pregnant at least once, or dying-- and by dying I mean killed by the system... choose any system because they're all designed to **** POC anyway".
I could never play in the sun during the summer with my white latinx cousins because the sun is not a brown girl's friend. The sun made my skin dark and made my aunt's hiss about my color to my mom and how she shouldn't let us out without sunscreen because we'd turn into "negritas", and that's what we shouldn't want.
I could never love myself because that doesn't exist when you aren't white. I mean, how do you love a body with thick brown hair, cracked skin, and a nose that doesn't look like Cinderella's? I mean, how can you love a body that doesn't look like anyone in the new J-14 magazine? I mean how do you love a body that's never seen the sun because she's scared of being too dark because then shes's ugly? I mean, how does a brown girl even love herself?
Feb 7, 2019
Feb 7, 2019 at 1:54 AM UTC