I never wrote grocery lists or dates and things
I never wrote my songs on paper, or memories
I just didn’t need to
Until I met you

While in a coffee shop I would have a surprise conversation
With a homeless man from Peru, or a security guard from Miami
And after every encounter I would pull out my phone
And write about the humor of it, the pain in it, or the realization from it


I wrote down the details so at the end of the day I could tell you the stories

After you left I still wrote down the stories because I wanted to be ready for when you came back
But when it became clear that you weren't, I stopped taking notes
And so every story is tucked away in my mind, forgotten
And now the only story that lingers is the story of you and me and how we came to be

i’ve been conditioned
like freshly washed hair
for years
do not offend
unless the end of the sentence is “i’m sorry”
let the shoes and boots and heels of many make indents on you
like blueprints of demurity swaddled in insecurity
kept alive by the blurry ideas i once held about femininity
because I couldn't be a girl if the words that flew from my chords
were anything but rosy
ring around the rosie,
pockets full of suppose he was to compliment your ****
when walking down a thorough-fair
busy people back and forth and grandmas with wrinkled sweaters
thank you
muttered from chapped lips and an even more chapped psyche
why must i keep my wits about to not risk making him angry
that was not complimentary but i am fearful he might spit my words back onto me
in the form of fists and slurs and honestly
i'm tired
of being the sidewalk beneath the feet of creeps
i am the sky and the trees and the moon
but i do not speak with the wisdom of traveling seeds
i speak with the warmth and subtly of freshly microwaved milk
like soft silk i wish i could tatter
i wish venom soaked words could be spit in response to your “compliments”
but i would rather let you diminish me for the few moments it takes to objectify me
than to risk angering your inner beast and suffering the consequences of meninism or masculinism
whatever the word is this week
i will not be another number
ink soaked paper red with the monthly bloodshed of the sisters
every second is another unspeakable act
i see women
with tongues as round and large as planets
and tonsils the size of solar systems
birthing new galaxies in the words they speak
and shooting comets like fiery ***** of comebacks
when that slack-jawed fool sat and wished and drooled

"Adrianna, why do you always date *****?" questions my best friend in the way that implies an answer is not needed nor wanted in the warm light of his front porch in the car that belongs to me but he offers to drive when my stomach is sick and a new ****-up is laid like fresh paint on my mind.
The question itself spins like a coin in my head that will never lay flat, like a bad autotune job, like a Rube Goldberg that will never halt, like it has too much truth to it.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because they don't seem like ***** when our eyes meet and the ***** of their smile makes my nose crinkle with an incessant desire to smell the warm scent of their chest as my head lays pillowed on it in the early morning calm before the loud realization of what events transpired the night before, before flashbacks of mixed bodies and sweaty whispers, before he decides he's seen enough of me, devoured his piece of meat, he's not hungry anymore.
When will I be his favorite food? The one he can have for breakfast lunch and dinner and still crave, the one he will always ask for seconds of, the one who is home to him. Every time I meet someone I call all of my friends and swear he's the ever so infamous "one," and every time I fall for the ******* lie that he "will not break me," YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME?! Then why am I shattered, laying in pieces on the cold tile floor, my mind a messy oozing disaster? But maybe my heart has always been just a taped up broken mess since Paula left, maybe when Aaron and Spain and Mitchell came along it was all too easy for them to pull at the poorly tied knotted strings I had sewn into my heart, maybe my soul was just a little too welcoming, maybe my mouth was a little too eager to feel theirs against it. But I can swear that when you "made love to me" it was really just *******, or else why would you take the one piece of me left only to complain after that I hadn't shaved. Well I've shaved every day since, cut bleeding patterns into my mortified anxiety, ripped tears from my eyes before I dare let them fall, and watched you kiss her over and over again. But if you asked me back I'd still say yes, rip the shredded heart from the box I've tended to keep it in and place it back in your hands to wear like a new notch in your belt, a new trophy for your collection.
"Why do you always date *****?"
Because some wretched inner part of my being believes I deserve it.

When I was just a little girl,
I asked my mother,
“What will I be?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be pretty?
Will I be pretty?
What comes next?
Oh right, will I be rich?”
Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop.
And the pretty question infects from conception,
passing blood and breath into cells.
The word hangs from our mothers’ hearts
in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry.
“Will I be wanted?
Worthy?
Pretty?”
But puberty left me this fun house mirror dryad:
teeth set at science fiction angles,
crooked nose,
face donkey-long
and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting.
My poor mother.
“How could this happen?
You’ll have porcelain skin
as soon as we can see a dermatologist.
You ****** your thumb.
That’s why your teeth look like that!
You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were 6.
Otherwise your nose would have been just fine!
“Don’t worry.
We’ll get it fixed!”
She would say, grasping my face,
twisting it this way and that,
as if it were a cabbage she might buy.
But this is not about her.
Not her fault.
She, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset
she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade.
By 15, I was pickled with ointments,
medications, peroxides.
Teeth corralled into steel prongs.
My nose was never fixed.
Belly gorged on 2 pints of my blood I had swallowed under anesthesia,
and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you!”
All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Like my mother, unwrapping the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty? Pretty.”
And now, I have not seen my own face for 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me.
This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.
About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.
This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters.
“You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely ‘pretty’.”

Blue was your favorite color
and I haven’t worn it since.
It reminds me of the sky that I thought you had painted for me,
how you always saw faces in the clouds
and you told me their stories.
The midday horizon matches the hue of your deep ocean eyes
but only my eyes have ever seemed to flood.
When you moved on I finally knew what green felt like
as loss and envy went fingerpainting across my bones until my bloodstream
was slow-flowing emerald,
the same shade of green danced alongside you
in the form of a dress.
I wonder if she ever felt the glowing yellow that illuminated my insides
every time that you called me beautiful and made me feel
like a gold ray of sunshine on a summer’s day.
But now,
I’m starting to favor winter.
I still inhale icy breaths as the shades of red you evoked within me
linger like migraines,
sharp pain that you left behind,
a scar that cannot be concealed because it’s so hard to hide
from the shades of scarlet that once painted your face.
I see your colors everywhere,
I remember feeling safe with you,
I never knew that I could become homesick from people too.
You were a rainbow and I was a shade.
You brought everything to life,
you made the stars dance and my face new tones of paint.
Then you decided that light tones just weren’t for you
and I missed
shades of perfect blue.
I’ve become a morning person so I can see the sky before it turns tones of you.
The orange-pink horizon has become my new favorite color
and I wear it every day in the highlights of my eyes and my skin,
it begins to feel warm again
and the long car rides and radio dials that sing melodies
no longer remind me of you.
We loved each other like change of the weather but can never make sense
of the storms within us.
If souls had colors
I remember I used to think ours were the same.
Same shade of sapphire storms that brewed within our lungs,
the words you screamed went heavy on our tongues.
All I hear are the winds through this hurricane.
I can’t see my way out
I only see you
I can only scream out
I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.
I poured everything into this but we were always empty,
empty minds, empty hands.
The ground we built has become unsteady to stand on.
I remember when you left I saw the red seeping through the cracks in my palms
of where yours used to fit so perfectly.
I don’t remember the sorrow,
I don’t recall the pain.
I remember the relief
and how every color was just beautiful.
I thought the world was going to be so dark
without you.

Let’s play a game.
Hey, boy, left of the dealer, deal me some cards,
But take out the jokers because even though I like funny guys,
I don’t wanna be dealt any of your cheap moves.

Instead, deal me the aces.
Deal me the kings, queens, and jacks because
I want the best of what you’ve got.
Even deal me the twos and threes because, honestly,
I want to know what you’re not.

And if you don’t have two of a kind, that’s okay-
I’ll have a match.
We’ll pair up our hearts
Because together we will pump more life into this world.
Share our twos and threes
Because exposing our weaknesses will lead to a stronghold.
Sell our diamonds because
Pretty, petty things will only lead to a belief in the value of fool’s gold.

We’ll de-clare war.
Grab the spades and clubs because love is more than just a game for two.
It is a battlefield.

And by the look in your eyes you’ve been shot by too many queens of hearts with cupid’s arrow.
So show me your scars.
Open heart surgery won’t hurt that much.
C’mon, we’ll play operation.
I’ll be the doctor, and you’ll be the patient.
Hand me the scalpel,
don’t scream now,
I might have forgotten the anesthesia.

But don’t worry,
Laughter is the best medicine.
And I am funny.
Trust me.
Trust me, trust me, trust me.
Open yourself up because this scalpel just isn’t working.

What queen of hearts decided she could steal yours?
Give me a clue.
Was it Mrs. White in the kitchen with the rope?
Mrs. Peacock in the ballroom with the dagger?
It was Mrs. Scarlett in the coat closet?

No, no, no.
Don’t bump me back to start-- I’m sorry.

Our pasts are not taboo.
Every why or what or who has merely been a teetering, tottering
domino set in place along my ribcage.
Waiting for you to tip the first barrier and clear the path to my heart.

We can treat this like a slow game of Jenga.
Building slowly until we run out of blocks and then we’ll stop.
Because taking turns tearing it down can come later.
And by later I mean maybe, hopefully, possibly never.

Or…we could just play Uno.
Tossing all our
matches into a messy pile.
Using our wild cards to avoid drawing anything that might drag us back into the game,
Reverse cards, skip your next turn cards,
It’s all the same.

But that’s okay because I know this game of risk is just a temporary thrill.
It’s the missing first kisses, the oh baby it’s you I can’t resist,
and the oh god my broken heart wants to jump off all of these suicidal bridges.
This game will end.
Because this isn’t love.
It’s really just teenage betting-on-an-ace-of-hearts pretend.

I want to know how to be
everything you need.
Teach me how to be
the reflection of your dreams.
I will paint you oceans,
sail you across the world, buy islands
and name them after you.
I want to be everything
you’ve ever imagined.

You follow the world
from the safest distance.
You are completely odd
in all of the right ways
and I want to be
the mirror image
of your wildest dreams.