Admiration is a word that comes to mind when I think about her work.
The seamstress only has to imagine and she can create a masterpiece of herself.
With every thread, button, and hem she tells a story.
She represents herself with every outfit. Her work molds to her every curve and bump.
She can move effortlessly and not worry about a tair
or loose string.
She can create herself into exactly who she wants to be.

And then there is me.
Who has to fight every zipper,
glare at every neckline,
and gripe at worn out areas that have rubbed and tugged to try and fit
my untamed figure.
The clothes that disguise me only entangle me
in a world of self hate and disappointment.
The number or letter on the tag become scars tattooed in my brain of three words:
not
skinny
enough.

I remember when a boy in line during the 4th grade called me fat ***.
I remember when I was taken by my mother to a store that "might have things that fit better."
I remember looking at pictures of myself next to my friends and instantly comparing every inch of myself to theirs.
I remember when I looked at myself and thought, "maybe if you lost 20lbs. you would be attractive."
When the Seamstress looks in the mirror she sees a canvas.
A challenge.
A body that will fit herself.

When I look in the mirror I see a girl fighting to fit in her body.
I see those memories of hiding behind baggy sweaters.
I see countless dressing room breakdowns.
The seamstress must have harsh eyes.
She must have her own burden.
Her clothes may be her own, but is it all a disguise to hide herself too?

Dear future friend, lover, husband,

At this particular moment in my life, I am laying straight on my back on a hard flat mattress.
I am hearing the sounds of cars struggling to leave a parking lot with tired wheels and manly voices.
My heart is free for the first time since the last time it was broken, and I pray. I pray to our God that the next time is the last time.

Dear future friend, lover, husband,

I want you in that order. I want to know you and laugh with you and feel like I am safe with you.
I want to pray, dance, and dear God I hope I get to sing with you.
I hope I get to eat a full bowl of ice cream in front of you. I hope you stay around for what that does to me, and if you stay through that mess then you deserve this chest, these hands, and my feet.

Because with this chest I will ache for you.
With these hands I will reach for you.
With these feet I will walk towards you.

I have had too much hope and too little life to give up.
I’m sitting in Nairobi, wondering where you are. Wondering if you are.

Dear future friend, lover, husband,

I grew up thinking I needed you. I grew up believing only one love was true. I grew up believing you’d come and find me like a sleeping beauty I would be awakened when I met you. But I can’t wait for you.

I’ve trekked across the globe and seen the band of the earth. I left trails of myself in every place I was like bread crumbs hoping you’d follow the delicious path to me.

So take your time picking up the pieces that will lead you to me. I don’t want to wait for you and I sure hope you’re not waiting for me.

Dear future friend, lover, husband,

I hope you understand that I love you already. I have only a notion that you exist. My words stutter and stumble around trying to find a way to you.

Do not wait for me, but join me on this hard flat mattress, and make this night less of a nightmare and more of a future.

Could it be possible that I’m worth more than my ******?
When you look at me what do you see?

Because I am frightened by your eager eyes.
I am nervous at the way you so openly ask me,
“Are you married? What is your age?”
I pray in my mind that I’m just being naive.
Not every man is seeking to make you their toy.

But as I walk down the street, foreign tongues caress my ears,
Eyes poke at my curves,
Hands reach to cage me.

I am American.
I am white.
I am a college graduate.
I have a credit card.
I have a savings account.

But these things about me are not an excuse.
My skin may shine in the sun,
my belly may be well fed,
my privilege may make you jealous,
So hate me for my birthright,
But let me be free.

I am not here to save you.
I am not here to please you.

But let this be a lesson.
Let this interaction give me courage and hope that maybe you really do only want to talk.
Let my mind stop alerting my adrenaline to run so that when I need to I can outrun you.
Let this be a peace offering.
Let me tell you that I am American,
But that doesn't mean I’m a dollar sign.
That doesn’t mean I’m better than you.
It means that I was lucky.
Know that I am sorry.

I am not here to save you.
I am not here to please you.
I am here to be with you.

Like a fossil you have encapsulated yourself into my history.
Whether we like it or not, I can still feel your presence in my dreams.
Sometimes you are distant and we never quite reach each other.
Sometimes you are so close I can smell your breath again.

Like a cold shower in the dark, I feel you shockingly all around me.
Overtly aware that you are both here and not even close by.
I’m strictly aware of who you are around me.
But in the darkness I do not know what to make of you.

Like an A-frame hug, you comfort me from a distance.
The sound of hope is emerging from my lips,
But each time it’s left floating like a pebble to the bottom of a river.
The music we shared plays softly but I know I am the only one who hears it.

I could spin similes and weave a quilt showing what you mean to me,
Small memories and fragments of our time would keep me warm.
But I can tell that there is not enough for both of us anymore.
If you don’t mind, I’ll hold on to these pockets of happiness.

There is sugar in my hair.
And not that you care,
but I spent a good amount of time last night standing in front of my mirror.
When I look at my face, I see the history of hurt.
My pores are wide and full of dirt.
My eyebrows grow sporadically towards my hairline.
My nose is exposed to too much sun, and it has eroded over time.

So I close my eyes,
like pressing the refresh button
and open them slowly to see myself once again.

The glass reveals nothing new.

I watch my lips as they whisper your name.

I raise my hands above my head
and lean back on my heels,
tilting my head and grunting in frustration.

I return to the same face.

The problem is that I hide behind insecurity. I demand honesty but refuse to be vulnerable. And every time I want to slap the face I see in the mirror.
My insides scream out to be fearless
and to choke back the sounds
secretly hoping you’ll hear them
even though I refuse to free myself from this trap.
Your only fault is not reading my mind.
Scratch that,
your only fault is being blind.
Scratch that,
my problem is that I expect you to be all seeing and all knowing.

You are no god.
You do not hold power inside of you to release the bellows of my heart.
You are not on a quest to free me from myself.
All you are is a human,
with skin and bones and muscles that put all together
are a beautiful masterpiece of a dream come to life.
Your eyes are familiar,
but I hardly know what they look like because
I fear their gaze.
Your face brings a calm and confident presence,
but I hardly notice because
I am already picturing it with some other girl next to you.

Yet you break from the mold of the mess I made so many years ago.
You show me that you are flawed
That your pieces do not fit me the way I thought.
The jagged edges cut deep into who I am.
The holes release my insecurities.
I quickly plug them with excuses
And bragging of things I know I am good at.

Ants have a system of finding food.
The scouts set out, leaving scent trails.
As they find food, the others follow the path that smells the strongest.
The scouts return with a message of a prize, yet when the prize is removed they begin to worry and scurry.
The ants wander in the spot that once held promise,
confused and anxious.

I wonder if those ants feel insecure when they arrive and nothing is there.
Do they question their ability to find the food?
Do they wonder if it was there fault when the scraps are thrown away or removed?

You don’t owe me anything.
You never promised or told me words of hope.

Yet I feel like the ant that found a beautiful piece of food,
but cannot find a way back to you.
I am running around in my head,
trying to find my way to you,
but it’s a futile search.

It’s a pointless wandering of daydreams and conversations that will never happen.

Because I hide.

My face feels heavy.
The skin is bloated with too much stress eating and not enough sunshine.
Instead of fixing the problems, I try and mask them with sugar scrubs and pinterest remedies. I don’t want pity,
nor do I seek attention.
I earnestly hope you find yourself happy,
and I earnestly hope
I can accept it.

Let's talk about the letter x.
It's one of the weirdest letters we have in the English alphabet. It's a prized letter in the game of scrabble. It's a stumper for some kindergarteners who need to know that one word that starts with it to move up a grade. It's a symbol for a spot. Sometimes it's treasure, sometimes it's a target. Sometimes, it's a word. Sometimes it's a rating of a thrill or a cheap way to get off alone with some tissues. Sometimes it makes things extra small, and sometimes it makes them extra large. Or sometimes it's a way to describe someone.
Ex.
Like an ax to the wood we severed into thousand of splinters. I never thought I'd call you by that letter. I had a different future in mind. One with yellow green and white. One with your forehead pressed against mine as I pushed out creation. One with a chalk board wall full of poetry, lyrics, and sketches of light houses with suns rising in the background.
Now all I see is a big red x over all those dreams.
My treasure map is torn and burned and I can only see the target, but will never find the way to your heart again. My scrabble board is missing letters, and as I search for a way to forget them I keep putting down the letters to your name. I can't move on, like a child stuck behind their innocence and unable to comprehend what is next. I have to only imagine our bodies touching like those two thin lines on a paper. Intersecting like a comet to the atmosphere, colliding but burning up with terrible destruction.
My poetry doesn't have rhythm, and the rhyme has gone awry. All I keep seeing are ******* x's over every line I write. Because none of them put me and you and love together again.
The letter x is so strange. It's a weird thing we chose it to be a way to describe the end of something. One line going one way, the other a different way. But somewhere they meet and for the brief encounter there is hope that the lines will curve into love. But the lines have to move on, and so do we.

Leaving home is no longer exiting the address attached to my paperwork.
The walls that contain my childhood are a time capsule full of spoiled memories.
The bedroom where I prayed away scary monsters is now a skeleton of myself with transplanted hobby attempts by my mother.
The rearranging of furniture, the shifting of pictures, the emptiness of space and claustrophobic piles of clutter in the closets push me outside.
Outside, where the trees grew with me and kept me shaded while my imagination transformed the branches into jungles or utopian planets ruled by female playmobile.
My mother laments at the clutter and space we hoard while my father would be happy as long as his tools are untouched.
Leaving home is like entering into a comma, and every time I wake up I've lost another memory.