acting on a stage,
she builds with each step,
step,
    step,
        stepping,
the floorboards trail behind her feet.
they form from the soil,
the earth breathing beneath,
wooden planks sprouting between her toes.

she sings in a voice strained and trained,
her diaphragm strong and core
rumbling in single breaths.

her skin brushed with pigment,
cheeks tinted rouge and lips scrubbed till pain,
gold-dusted on her bones
rays reflecting and blinding from her beauty.

stomach she ***** in,
twenty-four
seven,
always prim and proper,
a perfect specimen of femininity,
her blood flows in a viscosity unique
only to the elite.

fingers down
but she lacks words to throw up,
she's silent,
an empty vessel,
her lips meant to be a two-way gate
but nothing flows either way.

her skin sunkissed turmeric,
her irises tapioca pearls,
hair flowing and falling from her face
toasted nori on the white rice her dress.

daily rehearsals of sixteen
odd years practicing lines;
memorizing them, repeating internally,
the stage she builds like a church
her loves oppose to the act,
but she builds an antidisestablishment
forcing her audience of parishioners
away from her.

it’s all a lie, how i say i’m
a writer; i’m a fraud, and none of it is
mine. my pieces are edited over and
over, occasionally by those who’re
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


    my first real crime: i applied for a writing course-- i guess stanford didn’t see how my fiction wasn’t just me, and it was jenny, my good friend jenny who edited this piece-- made it worthy of  praise, worthy of pride, worthy of
stanford.
i remember that morning, a sunday in may, my phone waking me in vexation, and with a grudge i pick it up, reading jenny, my good friend jenny say: cher, i got in, i ****** got in, check your god ****** email. now.

congratula

  *******, i can only internally scream, it’s
all a lie.
    i’m not who they think  am, i’m
a fraud, a really good
fraud, a fraud who
deceived not only stanford but also
       themselves, a fraud with
too much pride     so they
forced themselves to apply. i don’t deserve
any of this, at all. i faked my skills, my
     piece isn’t mine, it’s all a lie, i’m not
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
cause i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


     and another time: on the flight to san francisco, it sank in-- how i’d be stretched thin, pretending and acting and deceiving a professor, a real stanford professor, how there was no way in hell i’d be nearly as good, i was misunderstood cause i wasn’t anybody, you see, i’m just me; a sad, short, fool; like i was once again the sad and  anxious kid alone in
preschool.
then in a blur, i’m checking in, these students sitting here all assured and then there’s me, o me, about to be marked as an absentee because apparently they see me as an equal, an equal who was at the very least
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
but i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.


this is insane,
i can’t stay in this house full of writing
   students, they’re almost like mutants,
writers are an absolutely crazy
lot, they’ll give me  a blood clot and
whatnot. well, maybe the expository bunch
will be alright, but that’s just a hunch. my
concern is with the creative crew,
         cause everyone knows the
            most catastrophic murders are
creative.  they know no bounds, they’ll write
whatever to the grave, their poetry so sharp
it could ****, and i know,
just from looking at them that, well,
i’m *******, cause i’m not at all
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.



     and now a paradigm: i’m in class, my first class with twelve others, and next to me, my friend jenny, my good friend jenny, sat quietly, and in my chair i’m in internal warfare-- my head reeling, face flushing, all sorts of anxious feelings. so we’re waiting for the prof, and the moment he shows up i’m about to throw up because i know i’ll make myself out to be the weakling, the pleb, the imbecile amongst the others and i feel like a criminal. matthew, the prof, gives us five minutes to write, and all i could write was a pathetic seventeen syllables, and it truly was terrible, something like:

we are born as light
and struggle not to drown in dark
but it’s all for naught

  and i clearly remember his face, that expression showing subtly that i was a disgrace when i recited that haiku, and i felt as if that that was my cue; to leave, that is, but i couldn’t. and so i sat in class for the next three hours hanging my head in shame, because i knew that i wasn’t
adequate,
intelligent,
with genuine talent,
and i’m just a fraud, a fraud with a
vocab, a fraud pretending they possess skills.

i am the universe
come alive, come conscious,
and what is sentience but
a mystery living at the base
of all that we can ever be?
what a strange dichotomy,
how insignificant, and yet
spectacular! inconceivable beauty.
my life is a verse in the cosmic poetry
constructed out of explosive nothing,
a vast vacuum littered with
unknowable everythings.
what to me is familiar idiosyncrasy,
the everyday routine of my wakings
was arbitrarily designed by some intricate,
equation unsolvable, navier-stokes
nothing compared to the machinations
of the minute turbulent eddies
from the swirling currents in my bloodstream
to the patterns formed by astronomical dances
debris and space dust.
so how is it then that in my miniature
dollhouse of a life, am i languished?
i look up through the pollution,
through the night sky, and think
of how much i long to simply bask
in the beautiful artistic whimsy
the universe has let me into,
to embark on the philosophical,
the insurmountable task to uncover
the myriad of deep secrets locked now
for i am the universe come conscious.

He,
standing on my doorstep,
         it is only
He             who i open the door for.

He    steps in,     standing
     n o n c h a l a n t.
i offer,
offer to Him scalding tea
     with poisoned biscuits.

His fingers  taper
tapering to            claws,
claws that run along my collar
    collarbones

undoing my collar,
undoing my buttons down,
  d
       o
              w
                            n
and o! He unclasps the fishing hooks
where He wounded me                      so long ago,
the once open gashes now
      scars! scars! keloids and scars!

fear, fearing, i feared,
i knew He would be disgusted,
my impure skin, with bUmPs
and so many im pur ities,
      no longer am i blank,
blank slate,
                extra ****** olive oil to sear with.

and still, He ravages my flesh,
the flesh with purpose
purpose to summon Her,
      life.

He rips my insides, allowing
wilting, withering away,
    losing first blood was so long ago.
  the last i bled a month ago,
                  yet i need not fear fertility.

He is welcome,
He is here!
He uses me,
eats me,
inside me,
becomes one with me,
and then
He leaves.

His next visit i await.

time worth ash i spent in gold, two summers
ago sweet apples, a break and burst from
my old self, those iron anvil shackles.

there was she, a poem herself, her words
exotic and sour-- a drizzle of oil, olives
in her eyes; her treacle breath a shower

"words don't matter, meaning dies, just
think not your words you write-- syntax and
grammar shouldn't be used, and never out of spite."

she told me there of artistic lies, her ways
of writing bare, those bubblegum hearts and
lemonade tears evaporating into air.

talent was she; still she stood oblivious
laughing snowflakes blush, they melted
in the summer heat, wash away my crush.

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i slipped into
complacency and
laziness
only to result in failure, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i hurt others by
being hurt
myself
all for naught, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i lost motivation and
sleep, the want to
eat
and live, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i stabbed myself in the
chest over and
over
trying to hold on, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i fell into conflicts within
myself clashing with
myself
no longer breathing, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i was never good
enough for
you
and i couldn't try harder, and

maybe, just
maybe

it was my fault, how
i could never breathe in
and out on the cold
bathroom
floor sitting, and

maybe, just
maybe

it wasn’t