When will you learn?
You don't play with fire unless you want to get burned.

Whoops.

Thought I knew this well.
every step I had to take,
every lie--delivered smiling--I had to sell,
every mindless task, no breaks.

Thought you knew of my own created, designer hell.
watching me falter towards an imaginary goal,
watching my fibs for tells,
watching my to-do list quadruple.

I thought I knew how to quit,
how to snap out of it.
I thought you knew about it,
and how to deal with this ****.

Turns out that neither of us knows jack-squat.
And that's alright, I swear I got this, yeah I'm good, I can do it.
I hoped for you to say something, I thought you knew I was talkin' *******.
Yet, without a word, you left
me to rot.

Prompt: Explain the story behind a picture from your camera roll
(date of picture taken: August 30th, 2019)


The picture is a simple mirror selfie, but the story has more to do with what I was wearing.
Earlier that day, I went to the mall to shop for my homecoming outfit with
my friend, (REDACTED).
It seems trivial to someone else, I guess, but to me, it was a big deal.
It was because I could drive and because we were at the mall against
my dad's wishes that added to my nervousness of it all.
I went to the boy's section of the clothing store because I'm really short,
and (REDACTED) helped me pick out a suit.
My first suit.
Just wearing the suit jacket, I couldn't help but smile like an idiot.
It was so....right.
I don't know how else to explain it.
It was as if all those little pieces just fell into place and everything felt
all right.
For once, everything in that moment felt good and perfect.
I didn't care about the curious looks from the middle-aged moms.
I felt....euphoric?
Euphoric.
Gender euphoria.

The story we read in class today talked of the narrator's father
seeing his home of Italy as an old country he left behind
to carry on with what he started in the USA.
I'm not so sure that that's good.
When you forget where you come from, you forget yourself in a way.
There was a part of you that grew up and learned about life where you
used to preside.
Why would you want to lose that?
Thinking about it now, I do realize an obvious answer;
perhaps your hometown wasn't too great of a place
for someone like you, or maybe growing up there had bad
experiences.
In my mom's case, she left behind the city for the country.
She grew up in (REDACTED) with people she knew for forever.
But she always told me that she knew that as soon as she left for college,
she wasn't going back to that place.
Having to go out and buy cigarettes for your parents because they
don't have their driver's license will do that to a person I guess.

that's what she told me.

But without it, who I am?
I don't think I would recognize myself.

Maybe we didn’t have to fall asleep
to be blind to what we see.
We used to stay up late,
wishing upon the stars.
Hoping for someone to hear us.
I wanted to be something greater,
change something for the better.

But any astronomer can tell you
that those stars aren’t real anymore.
They’ve died long ago.
They’ve left me staring at the ceiling in the dark,
awaiting something that will never embark.