My heart beats with dissonance—
the kind of clash that grits teeth
and twists pretty faces.
Still, she pulses, unforgiving,
to her own imbalance,
aware of her existence;
aware that the definition of music
is infinite,
and her song will never beg
to be understood.

I am an instrument with proud, inexcusable curves,
finished in a deep stain that shows my wear,
how I was loved—
the hands that have touched me.
It accentuates my grooves, my nicks.
It implies the things I've seen
and the music I've created.

I hang on the wall in the far left corner.
One of many walls in this room of a thousand others like me,
made to perform the very same tasks.

It's quiet here.
Echoes in our hollowed bodies,
amplified from the smallest sounds.
All of us, hiding away until we're found,
recognized—and stroked and strummed.
Poor and pitted, waiting
for the completion of hands, and minds,
and unmatched understanding of how and when.

There is a hope, when the lights come up—
when the footsteps approach my wall.
Although he hasn't yet, the thought alone sustains me.
I can feel him
lift me off of my holds,
run his hands down my pronounced edges,
and tune me with precision
by his classically trained ear.
He twists and plucks,
as I contract and give and give again.

I only play beautifully for him.
I vibrate to hum
making notes that require
no accompaniment.
For a stretch of time, I have purpose.
My hollowness
becomes a haunt for untethered melodies.
He makes me something I cannot otherwise be.

The maestro,
the maestro and me.

To be the object
of someone's fresh jealousy
seems so delicious.

Electric fingers
run themselves
over and through
patches of frayed soul.
To wake and make
her breathe again,
they pull and dig,
intending to heal,
laboring on a level
never made known
to darkness;
never touched
by light.

When she was much younger,
they all used to stroke her long, dark hair
and bathe her in compliments.
“Oh this one—she’s so smart, so wise, so clever.”
Syllable by syllable, the words soaked into her skin.
Perfumed in praise, she grew up believing it all—
that she was a step ahead of the rest.
Whatever picture everyone else saw,
she saw the bigger one.
And the girl did.
She worked the biggest knots with well-oiled fingers
and always knew better before better got the best of her.
She learned everything she needed to know
from all of the books she read and collected.

But every Little Red Riding Hood comes across her own Big Bad Wolf.
Hers with a smile so much more cunning than any storyteller could do justice.
He’d stroke her long, dark hair and bathe her in compliments too,
“Oh this one—she’s so soft, so kind, so comforting.”
Wise Little Red followed him everywhere,
down dark and twisted paths with crooked trees,
other snarling beasts and poisonous flora that tingled her nose
and filled her lungs and clouded her judgment.
She didn’t even think to mark her trail
so that she could find her way home when she’d need to.
And when the wolf turned, like all of the stories told her he would,
When he barred his teeth, growling at her like a threatening stranger—
she knew he had decided that she was no longer a friend.
She had gotten too close to him and too far from home.

As she struggled to find her way back,
Little Red realized that her books were good for nothing.
The only things worth learning
are on those dark, twisted paths… lined with dangers,
with nothing but her own nose to follow.
And she laughed alone, knowing that her kept wits
would be the only thing to keep the wolves at bay.

I'm not ashamed to find solace
in the melancholy.
I'd be willing to bet
that sadness
is a more prominent commonality
than smiling.

I can't find **** thing wrong with that.

There's a certain truth found in tears
that can't be derived from
a pair of curved lips.

A feather floating to the floor—
we hit the ground without
so much as a sound;

an unspoken beautiful blue.

I refuse to let life fade my colors.
Every experience, event,
each of the souls I’ve met,
all of those feelings felt,
dye me a bit deeper—
shades and tints a bit richer.
And when I leave this world,
you’ll find traces of me
in every place you look.
Footmarks so vibrant,
even rainbows will
have something to pray for
after the storm.

Hushed, like a morning before sunrise, 
grace floods in without threat.
A sudden flutter of piano keys cues
a story to unravel onto something
so much more interesting
than pages of paper.
To eerie tunes and haunting hums,
she brushes, feather-like, across my eyes—
a pinnacle of innocence
that humbles me to the warmest tears.
She does not speak but tells me everything.
So beautifully, with pointed toes
and arms as weightless as summer clouds,
my imagination falls to her tiny mercy.
The little girl in the light blue dress,
who became
my favorite storyteller.

Twenty-eight has toes
butted up against a pitch black promise.
It tastes like mint tea and sucralose,
semi-sweet wine, and runny egg yolks.
It's colonies of bats, strung still in a cave,
bursting into flight whenever provoked.
Twenty-eight has a thousand eyes
looking in every direction
and nimble fingers holding a pocket watch
ticking only in double time.
It understands death
but still can't help but take its days for granted.
Twenty-eight pays rent
but would rather sleep on the beach tonight.
It practices the alchemy that can change
base metal regrets into precious gold vision.
It beats and breathes on the assumption
that it has tomorrows to spend.
Twenty-eight walks a tightrope woven
with expectations and balances only
by the weight of its dreams.
It trudges through thickets and thorns
if only to tell the stories behind its scars.
Terrifyingly beautiful,
that twenty-eight.

Twenty-nine belts bravery from a bottle.
It feels like all talk and no game.
Twenty-nine has thighs that don't lie
and a finger that motions you
to come closer.
It relearns each facet of love
and finds beauty in its own reflection.
Twenty-nine betters the invention
instead of reinventing it.
It imagines kissing strangers to feel alive and
gifts the pearl to the jewel thief
with no words- only smiles.
Twenty-nine strikes a match
in the middle of a pitch black nowhere,
only to see the smoke twist up and away.
It cracks and hisses when it feels its been forgotten.
It smells like pine needles, orange peel, and sun bleached cotton.
Twenty-nine forgets those who have forgotten it
but thanks them for the lessons.
It likes church but only for the music, architecture, and sociology.
Twenty-nine won't apologize for passion or pity,
but it will drip with empathy at inopportune times.
Twenty-nine steeps itself in scalding water
only to discover its true flavor.
It finds no comfort in the opinions of others
but will only rest at the signal of a nod of approval.
Twenty-nine looks down into the neverending
and can't decide if it wants to jump or run.
It handstitches a parachute
as it dangles one foot over the edge,
says a prayer to no god
but writes hymns that bring tears.
Twenty-nine keeps breathing.
It keeps breathing.

A little ball of brilliance,
occasional stroke of genius,
has trouble finding Jesus,
but practices her patience.
Her mind? No problems speaking it,
so she never valued silence,
and depending on the season,
her shoes are just a hindrance.
Yet lady follows every sequence
achieving her achievements—
chooses paths not quite so lenient,
drums those patterns not quite so seamless.
Despite the lack of easiness
she never masters the art of grievance,
but lady loves with a vengeance
and makes love with ******* vehemence.
Although lady was obedient
and always vowed him her allegiance,
lady never found it quite convenient
to be inconveniently a convenience.

You’re asleep two inches to my left.
Two of the longest inches
I’ve ever measured with these eyes—
eyes that will not close or rest or fixate
on anything but those
inches that
never used to exist.

And when I finally do
look around the room,
suddenly all of the artwork on the walls
doesn’t seem like mine anymore
and my skin feels foreign—
so foreign.

It’s like I have all of the parts
to keep myself working,
but my instructions are all in Swedish,
and even these detailed diagrams can’t
get me there again.
Figure A looks nothing like it used to
and all of the screws are stripped,
useless, dooming any effort
to keep things together.

I want out of this room—
and what I feel writhing in my ribcage
is no longer something that’s keeping me alive
but this slimy Chest Burster
of conflicted alien emotion
that’s promising to break through my breast
at any moment
if I don’t close my eyes.

Guts…
guts everywhere…
and it won’t be pretty.

But I can’t settle my mind, and
I don’t want to wonder
what you could possibly be dreaming
like I did those thousand times before,
as my cracks continued
to silently branch off in new directions.

So I let him.
I keep my eyes open and I let him
burst through the surface.
The last thing I see is my own matter
flung onto that artwork on my walls,
and my last two hopes are
that my parents know
how much I love them
and that this hungry alien baby
bites off the only thing
you have going for you
with his
otherworldly
sharp set
of teeth.

Listen,
I'm really sorry
for not finishing
the teleportation device
like I promised.

I've misplaced my blowtorch
& I really do ****
at whipping up blueprints.

[I hate numbers & measuring.
more than most things in life.

So please don’t make me.]

I realize it would be beneficial
for everyone
if I just buckled down
& made it happen;

if I didn't sleep for months
& somehow managed to
defy all principles
of space & time.

I'm a woman with gumption, see?
I could definitely do it.

But there's something
devilishly attractive
revolving around the idea
of being without
such an ultramodern convenience.

**Or maybe
I just revel in
making you
work for it.

Too many layers.
Peel them off of me slowly.
Don’t worry. You’re next.

They gave me a name that didn’t suit me.
What’s funny is
the universe recognized that
before I did.

She paid me this compliment:

“There’s too much person to you.
You can’t be tripped up with so many
syllables in something so trivial as a name.
Less speaking, more breathing,” she said.

Four reduced to two.
Now I can exist in half the time.

I became “Bitsy.”
Which means I’m associated
with certain things.
Mainly tiny spiders
and brightly pattered swimwear.
It’s easy to be irked by that, you know.
Yet, I smile and take it,
because they raised me
with the patience of an idiot.

I get automatic cute points
just for introducing myself with a name like this.
Newcomers get giddy,
like hearing my name is equivalent
to receiving a box of kittens.
I always try to drop an expletive or two—
I just don’t want them
to get the wrong f#@%ing impression.

“Less speaking, more breathing.”

I instructed the universe
not to do me any more favors.

I want to live the kind of life
that looks gorgeous
in a rear view mirror.
A life riddled regretless--
full of curves and edgy paths
that I chose to leave behind.
If by chance I miss my turn
while reliving what's passed,
let them canonize me
the patron saint
of the wanderlust--
spelling out blessings
for the bored and anchored
with every speck
of my kicked up dust.

Eyes fall on him, and I just know
the boy's soul sounds like an intricate piano crescendo.
Chords carrying complimenting rhythms
slicing through the thick, humid air of some summer night
in a hidden park overgrown with ivy vines.

I listen, without strain, to his overlapping notes,
as I grab at my chest, aching with empathy
but lulled by a contentment deep-rooted in recognizing
that there is someone else who shares my song.

He dipped his fingertips in the birth bath—
mesmerized by the ripples he created.

"When we were kids," he said,
"I remember we'd try to see
how long we could hold our breath
under the water."

"It's funny, isn't it?" she asked.

"What is?"

"How we just try
to keep our heads
above it now."

Boy's hand works last hook.
Bra flies. Girl grins. Ain't no shame
in coming undone.

So they say I’m a quiet one.

[Insert stint of dramatic silence here.]

It’s true.
This little mouth does not say much.
I chew on my opinions until they've lost their flavor.
I only own up to feelings if I get them down on paper.
What goes in, you see,
doesn't always need to come out.  

But just because my lips aren't constantly quivering with
quips and quotes
                       and qualms  
                                        and questions
about this world and everything in it,
doesn't mean
that these lips
can’t.

See, my psyche, she’s like an organic centrifuge—
Spinning so fast—she only appears to be standing still.
Spinning so fast—she doesn't have time
to make the connection from mind to mouth.
Spinning so fast—she’s silently grateful
that those hovering thought bubbles
can’t exist in reality.

Honestly, if they could,
she’d be royally ******.

I’d love to slow her down.
I’d love to turn her off.
But the power switch has been broken since 1988,
when all of the muddled beauty in this world
came barreling toward her all at once,
and the switch snapped.

She’s been turned on ever since.

[Insert stint of dramatic silence here.]

There’s just not enough time
for me to flesh out everything on my mind.
Oxygen is precious,
and they keep cutting down trees.
I won’t waste my breath—
I’m okay with keeping quiet.

I've found that
just because they can hear you
                                  *doesn't mean they’re listening.

I have this feeling you speak the language
whispered only between raindrops,
and every morning
you tune the hum of the sun as
it dims the stars, pushing its way
out of the ocean—into the sky.
I have this feeling you handpick the color
of each October leaf,
and when fall has wandered away,
you proceed to pull the strings which
make the northern lights dance
the way that they do.

I just have this beautiful feeling.

Woke up thinking that
all days are great days for humps;
one just got lucky.

“Love,” am I right?
Either you handle the concept with a fifty-foot pole,
or you lick your lips, and
sink your teeth right into it without question.
You choose to be safe
or you choose to be satisfied.

But there’s a small collection of us
who hang back in the shadows.
Those of us who choose neither.
Those of us who think.

We’re hesitant to even speak the word.
[Rightfully so.]
You're a naive if you use it too much.
You're a heartless ******* if you don’t say it at all.
But it's only a word.
We shouldn't give it the authority
to paint us into a corner.

Yet, here I sit
where my favorite two walls meet—
plenty of moments for thinking—
a thick, fresh coat dripping down
on either side of me.

There you stand,
arms crossed and smiling—
all come-hither and inviting—
saturated paintbrush in hand.

The only thought I can manage?
*****. I really like this color.

One phrase, thought-- but not spoken.
Offered unsafe passage past the lips.
Then I blink.
Suddenly, I'm standing, stripped,
naked, exposed and confused.
Screaming in a language
that isn't native to my audience.
Balled fists writhe in the air,
cool sweat drips
down the length of my spine.
Blank expressions paint
the faces of this grey panorama.
I find that one pair of eyes
and beg with my own, with their tears,
with ache, with a raw, beating heart.
They do not understand.
They will not understand.
I'll be up in flames before
my words are all translated.
My ashes kicked up in the wind.
The epitome of too late.

A brand new record.
Bright, self-renewed novelty.
Spin you paper thin.

I have this revelation—
like some eerie recurring dream.
It dips and cleanses my conscience
for a full five seconds of clarity.
A situation, short in stature, where
I can take slow breaths knowing that
I am able to walk away from this
bearing enough grit and grin to
repair all of my cracks and voids
with something stickier—
something I found on my own.

I have this revelation—
and in it, the boy is just a smudge
in the upper left-hand corner
of a yellowed photo
depicting a new me
and a new someone else
skinny dipping in some unnamed waterfall
deep in the secret folds of Appalachia.
In it, the smiles on the faces
are so incandescent
that the person holding the photo
doesn't notice
the charming tummy rolls, disheveled hair
or the smudge in the upper left-hand corner.

I have this revelation—
happiness should not be Rubik's-cubed into impossibility.
I have this revelation—
happiness should be simple.
Happiness should be simple.
            Happiness should be.
                                   Simple.

Hers is a light
begging to be refracted,
with a need to brighten
much more than one dark corner.
Hers is meant to break into
a thousand different directions;
colors for interpretation—
not solely admiration.
She will not dim
by the beam of anything brighter,
but absorb what she sees
to illuminate pathways
for travelers who seek her
as a source.

“To us, white girls are exotic,”
says my Arab American boyfriend.
At that moment, my brain ceases
to make sense of those words
in that order.
Exotic? White? Girl?
Me? Me. He means... me.
So this is what I say
to my Arab American boyfriend
who has
more culture in his pinky
than all of white America combined.
From what I can tell,
to be white in America is
boring static,
AM radio on a Sunday morning
with a broken dial
on a back road in the boonies.
It is the culture born by everything borrowed but wrongfully claimed
as its own invention.
To be white, in America, tastes like
cream of wheat
with no hope of brown sugar.
It is a tumbleweed-kind-of-rootless
and just as desert dry.
It is colorless, odorless, tasteless—
and will choke you slowly
if you don’t build up a tolerance.
But
if you’re lucky enough
to be white in America,
for about a hundred bucks
and a swab of the cheek,
the Internet can tell you
where you came from.
Even if that makes you feel cultured,
tomorrow you will wake up
and still be
white in America.
To be white in America, I thought,
was as far from exotic
as the self-loathing, middle aged guy
behind the counter
at your local DMV.
But white girls, he says, are exotic.
Perhaps it’s because pumpkin spice
oozes from my pasty pores,
or that “there ain’t no laws
when you’re drinkin’ the Claws.”
Maybe he couldn’t resist the fact
that the Starbucks barista
knows my order
better than my name,
or that my hair blowdries pin straight—
no matter the time of year.
I wonder if it’s the combo of
black leggings, messy buns,
and work out tanks—
or the fact that I think I’m saving the whole ******* sea turtle population
with my stainless steel straw.
Exotic?
Maybe it’s my compulsive nature
to buy in bulk, to pet every dog I see,
and to cry over Queer Eye episodes.
It couldn’t possibly be
the steady diet of rom coms,
my collection of Birkenstocks,
or the apple cinnamon candle
burning on my windowsill
that reminds me of “fall y’all,”
but then again, who knows?
To me, my whiteness is a privilege
that will forever be misinterpreted
as entitlement by every person
who checks that “white” box
on the form
without checking themselves too.

“To us, white girls are exotic,” he says.

White girl is just happy
he likes her in spite of it.

Sweet, but not too sweet.
Life balances
on the tongue of fate—
clicking and rolling
behind her cackles and trills,
while we act as if
these bitters are all we’ll ever
have the chance to taste.
“Breathe and savor,” she says,
“Too much sugar will rot your teeth.”

Everyone wants a definition.
I don’t care for those things.
I reserve them for dictionaries,
and associate them with uptight individuals who live life undecorated.

We’re conditioned to crave that black and white—
everything simply categorized;

“A place for everything and everything in its place.”

I hate that.
I really, really do.
But I like you.

& listen, I can do without the definitions—
But opinions—those I want.
The individualized answers expressed in a non-textbook-fashion.

As in, “What are your thoughts on Sunday mornings?”
You know, when we hold each other for as long as we like,
and drift in and out of sleep well into the late afternoon.

An opinion.
As in, “I can’t stand the thought of being a part of someone’s collection.”
And I know that’s not a question.
But I can bet on this: You have something to say about that.

An opinion.
As in, “I would totally lay claim to you if I could.”
But you’re not into being claimed—
And I’m not into chasing things that don’t want to be caught.
I was never was a very effective huntress—
Unless, of course, it’s for typos or a triple word score.

I’m not reaching in the dark.
I’m not holding my breath.
But
If you want my opinion—

Fewer things feel worse than this.

We ran barefoot on the grass alongside the gravel path. I’ll never run as fast as you, but I always try to keep up. The coast line looks like a fresh oil painting this time of day, and I wonder if you notice its colors the way that I do. My focus switches between you and the sun as it sinks closer to the water’s surface, beams breaking and refracting, glittering in every possible direction. There’s no need to decorate this day, I thought.

When we reach the stone cliff, I catch my breath, but the fear sinks in, and I lose it again. Beneath us is a fifty foot drop into deep, dark saltwater. While the surf chops and smacks against the sides of the rock’s base below, I know I would much rather stay up here in the soft sand dunes—safe, quiet and light. The ground I stand here, in this moment, would never hold a candle to your persuasive nature, and I found myself following your lead, stripping down to my bra and underwear. I hated feeling this naked, and the goose bumps on my freckled arms told me the harder we tried to hold on to summer, the sooner September would come.

No part of me wants to look down, but I don’t want to disappoint you either. Let me be clear when I say, I don’t expect you to grab my hand the way you do. I never asked for it, and I didn’t invite it. Yet, the second you do, we’re connected, and I know the jump is inevitable. You’re warm to the touch, and although you never say it, I know you can feel how scared I am; how unacquainted I am with this kind of risk. You fully understand that a person can’t miss something they’ve never had, and I’ve never had this. You know exactly what kind of door it is that you’re prying open; you recognize that the consequences of your introductions and explorations will be dire and deafening.

You know all of this, but you grab my hand anyway.

Despite everything, alongside you, I’m happy to run out of cliff beneath my feet, I’m happy to be terrified, suspended in mid-air. I’m happy… until you let go of my hand. A broken connection, plummeting down, down deep into chilled, murky water—I feel things brush against my legs and arms—I’m alone, and I don’t want to be here. The saltwater stings my eyes as I scour every possible inch of space in front me for some sign of you—hand, a leg—a fleck of movement. My blood pulses against the sides of my head. I need air. As I rush for the surface, I feel something pull me back down. Panic quickly coats my chest and my throat, and I wrestle my tangled ankle free from the thick patches of vegetation below.

You’re nowhere when I finally break the surface—******* up every inch of oxygen my lungs can manage—thankful, but estranged.

You grabbed my hand to jump, only to let go, and now, you’re nowhere.

I look in the distance, and I see your footprints on the beach, leading back up to the path. You’re okay. I’m relieved, but confused—so I follow them with my questions in tow. I follow them the whole way back to where we started—clothed and barefoot, talking about what we should do with the rest of our afternoon.

When I finally find you, I’m flushed and damp, and I notice that you’re not any of these things at all…including alone. She’s beside you, pretty…put together, and dry. You’re sitting still with her. No need to seek a thrill, no need to conquer heights. Although you never say it, I know you can see me silently disintegrating in front of you. Placing your hand on my shoulder, you’re cold to the touch. I pull away. I’m anchored here, but I don’t want to be—I want to run, but I’m stiff with fear as you open your mouth to speak.  I try not to hear your words, but you over articulate them, on purpose. They drip with insincere guilt as you slowly slide each of their jagged edges into my head.

“She gets me.”

*He knew, but he grabbed my hand anyway.

I can feel it down to my knees.
It terrifies me to fidgets.  
Not like that serial-killer-
chasing-my-pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow-***-
aroun­d-some-secluded-farmhouse-
in-the-middle-of-the-night-
when-I-hav­e-the-least-possible-chance-of-survival
kind of “terrify.”

I compare this kind of “terrify” to
the first time I set eyes on the Atlantic.
A hushed minute—
my eyes straining to see the end
of that blue on blue horizon.
And I’m
so filled with wonderment
at the thought of such a treacherous beauty—
I think, without question,
the idea of it all will surely swallow me whole.

Truth is
I'd jump right down that throat
without a single hesitation
if I knew the feeling would stick.
Truth is
I stay put—
because I know
that just because you plant a seed
doesn't mean it wants to grow.

Frankly, I don’t give a ****
if you weren't a spiritual guy,
because I can’t shake it—
I see your smile
in the smear of each sunset
and your side eye in the stars that follow.
I hear your ‘hello’
in every forgiving breeze
and your infectious laughter
in each clap of thunder.
In these small moments,
I feel whole for just a second,
and my heart swells at the thought
that you’re now so much bigger
than anything I can possibly
clasp my little t-rex arms around.
But, see,  I’m grateful
that I get to find you
from scratch
every single day—
that I can wrap myself
in all the parts of you
that I committed to memory—
that you, alone, gave me a chance
to fall in love
with the change of the seasons
all over again.

So I can’t trust the Times, Fox News, or the Post.
Too left or too right, just parasites hungry for hosts.
From you, fellow tax-paying citizen, I take note.
I listen to you — that angry defense of your vote.
Are you going to tell me what I am able to trust?
Before this land of the free is left to ruins and rust?
Silence speaks volumes,
like the encyclopedia I loved, circa ‘94—
devoured for hours on my living floor.
(Sidenote: That encyclopedia included several pages on
the Holocaust. But then, I suppose,
the Encyclopedia Britannica shouldn’t be trusted either?)
So what must I trust if I can’t share the news
without being challenged because of my views?
You say I can’t trust the posted or printed, so instead,
I'll trust something much louder in my heart and my head.  
I'll trust that empowered white supremacy in a place
where "all men are created equal," is something I refuse to embrace.
I'll trust that our freedom of speech is not our freedom to hate.
Black, brown, yellow, white— that’s not up for debate.
I'll trust that hope will swallow such hate in the blink of an eye—
choke the breath from its lungs and drop a beat to its cry.

And then I'll trust that history will one day forget
that we've failed to keep its pages from repeating just yet.

I don’t much care for
this summer heat anymore.
No one likes to touch.

I much prefer fall—
its chilled breezes and need for
some warm, close contact.

Tighter hugs, stronger
drinks, shorter days, and longer
nights with encouraged

cuddling, cuddl—
ing, cuddling, cuddling,
cuddling— you dig?

Guided by something heavier
than a final notice or a dollar sign.
It's a power, not for profit,
that's respected silently, without a like button.
It tangles my hair in the stars
as I dream of places that feel like home,
but never visited.
It whispers the names of people
that I know I've loved in another life.
The world is on fire, but
I close my eyes and hear its music.
It hums. I follow.
The world is on fire, but
I dance in its glow.