I keep writing 
writing and writing
on scrap notebook paper,
in the margins of my favorite books,
on old receipts for new notebooks
my hand is not yet worthy of
writing in circles
around and around
around the issue
around myself
big wide circles
turning everything i do
into a cyclone of denial
and hand cramps

I don't know what I'm doing anymore
I don't know where I'm going
or how to get there
Most days, I feel like a parked car at a green light
Other days, I don't feel like anything at all
Is this what life is?
How do people stand it?
Why didn't anyone warn me?
Where is the revolution for living?
Maybe nobody cares
More likely, they're just too tired to live
Everything is so hard
I'm tired too

Man comes through my line and strikes up a conversation
Man is 20
30
40
years old 
and shows an interest
"Hey there, darling
little girl
condescending verb"
I swallow against the pit in my stomach
Smile and engage
I am not my own person here
I am an image
An extension of the corporation
Man insults my religion
or hair
or whatever else he decides isn't to his tastes
Then a smile and shrug
"You're too pretty
sweet
female
to decide who you are"
And I smile or laugh,
dig my nails into my skin
hoping to stall whatever is crawling beneath it
I am not myself
I don't have the right to be angry
and I can't afford another complaint from a wounded ego
So I thank him
What else can you do
when both fight and flight will land you homeless and burning
Man smiles
and I imagine what it'd look like ******-ed
It strengthens my waning self control for now
Man asks when I'm free
and I try not to remember the crimes
of other men who took an interest in me
I apologize and tell him I'm seeing someone
Sometimes it's even true
"Must be a lucky guy
owner
chain holder"
Sure
I don't correct him
I know what men like this think of girls who like girls
and they tend to respect what they perceive
as another male's claim
Eventually, it ends
but he still lingers
in the back of my mind,
when it's close to midnight 
and I'm walking through a dark, empty parking lot,
keys clasped in my fist
I am not wearing a name tag
Nobody owns me out here
I am me again
and I dare a ******* to take an interest

The sky weeps
and the sun hides away
because they can never compare to you
7 wonders of the world my ***
You are the only wondering thought
I keep wandering back to
How can anything so beautiful exist
without shattering every law
of biology
...
and chemistry
we have ever known
How do you exist
if perfection doesn't?
The ancient builders of history
could learn a thing or two from you
about sloping angles 
and lasting structure
The divine beings that are
reached the pinnacle of their deathless lives
when you were born
Every achievement man has ever known
can never compare to the miracle of you

The man who sleeps in the diner's back booth
will not care  if your mother suffers  from
plantar diabetic neuropathy, or that your
cousin read **** and gulps *****.  

No,  trivial matters will not worry him
because he ****** himself dormant
after he awakens, that will be
his primary concern.