Stupid white girl.
We are not allowed to do anything.
We're prim and proper, white girls.
We are not allowed to fight back.
Put us in our place, white girls.
We are not allowed real work.
We still want our twenty three cents back.

The child of fair skin and blue eyes.
But with all my female privilege,
Came a nasty stamp on my body.
Like a watermark.
FEMALE.
I have heard that when a woman looks in the mirror, she sees a woman.
But when a man looks in the mirror, he sees a human.

Even with that watermark, our pale skin is used as a canvas.
And everyone else has been handed the tools to color in our curves.
Covering us in blue and black and purple and red.
Redrawing our minds so they cannot process the discrimination,
Painting over our tears so our feelings can be buried,
Manufacturing open legs when you want them,
Closed when you don't.
Erasing the lips we use to speak out,
Erasing the eyes we use to see all of this.

You think just because you held the brush,
Just because you created this monstrosity of a "masterpiece"
You get to claim ownership of this piece of artwork
That you blatantly disregard
Is my BODY.

The "fe" you tack onto "male"
Does not stand for Free Entry.
The "wo" you tack onto "man"
Does not stand for Wipe Out.

Women are barely able hold a pencil.
I was lucky to hold one long enough to draw myself
A conscience, a backbone, legs to stand on, and a mind.
We were only taught how to use the back end of that pencil
To erase our mouth and keep the secrets.
But these days the secrets are keeping themselves.

I will not be put in a glass case
You will not charge admission
To have people come and analyze me.
Buy me.
Give me value.
Categorize me.
Preserve me the way you created.

You are no artists.
You are vandals.

How I adore your nerve
when you kissed me in your closet upon sheets made of legos
and all of your childhood dreams.
How easy I am for you to draw when you play on stage the song that you wrote me,
The one that feels like rock climbing by the river,
Like naps in the summer when I drool on your chest and you don't mind,
Like kissing you until the very last minute of my curfew,
only to break it for the miracle that is your lips.
How alluring is your breath on my neck,
Your voice in my ear when you told me that you loved me
and you didn't stop smiling,
even as the years went by and I did.
How I craved, longed, begged for time to be still
the time you took me to the highest hill you could drive to,
You called it my mountain.
"At first, you look at it and it's so small,
but once you notice it, it's all you can see," you said.
How my stomach floods with waves of nostalgia and a taste
of everything I've ever had to live without,
With complete and utter spell-binded devotion at the simple familiarity
of your smell.
How addicted I am to your laugh when you're happy and
the mastered impression you do of your mom.
How weak I am to your intellect and your appreciation of literature
and real music,
Your enthusiasm for art and the "name that note" game you force upon me
as you stumble onto the classical radio station.
How in love I am with your romance that is as childish as my attachment
to my baby blankie and my mother's childhood walrus that you never ceased to insult.
Our pajama day that we decided over our prom,
When we turned on John Mayer and slow danced in your room.
Your idea of a date consisted of fake wine and me.
How incredibly warm are the coldest of nights,
On the side of your dirt road as we lie in the snow that is too cold for comfort,
yet holds us there with the fear that one day will not look the same as this one
and I would bear any amount of cold winter to keep one more moment of yours.
How I cherish the way you latch my pinky with yours when we walk
And the face you don't know you make when you play guitar.
The rooftop where you kissed me for the very first time and the string rings
we wore to remind each other we were still there.
How incredibly and unfortunately devout I am to all that I remember of you.

I make lists
to organize my life into lines
on a page
some lists are for groceries
others for wishes
I make lists of "to do's"
for the satisfaction of crossing them off
I scribble thoughts onto paper in the late hours of the night
I make lots of lists
of things I'm grateful for
of goals still awaiting their accomplishment

to remind myself I exist

I guess it's also a form of obsessive compulsiveness
that comes with not knowing who you are
or being unsure of where you're going
I make lists
to slowly, deliberately, write myself into a person

And you
You don’t listen
You just wait for me to stop talking
And I keep on giving
And you keep on taking
And it’s draining
I hate you for it
But I hate me more
Because I let you take
And I keep giving
And it never ends
This thing that we’re living

I overestimate how much I can handle.

All of the time.

I just now discovered this about myself.

It changes nothing, I will always take on the world.

Even if it kills me.

My heart has loved so many.
Ever-changing and ever lasting.
Going farther than I could ever believe.
And yet, I still get hurt and no amount of bandages,
nor thread can hold all of my pieces together.
I'm hoping that you know I still think of you and
my heart aches because I shattered yours:
something so elegant and valuable- broken.
only now do I realize that I've been wrong
right now I find that you didn't need me at all
right now I find that I needed you. More than anything. I'm
yearning for you to share some words with me again, but I know it wont happen
and rightfully so. I said I wasn't good enough, and I believed it, now more than ever. And still, I
neglected that you were telling me otherwise. That you still wanted me around.
Distance was my problem. How I longed to turn our tangled words into reality.
I still can't step onto my porch without having my mind flood full of regret.
maybe I'll stop with all of this nonsense of 'what ifs' and 'have beens' but for now it seems
impossible. I know I
still haven't met a soul as beautiful as yours or
someone who could make me feel so full with only their words.
You were that only person.
Only you could have done that. And when I drifted out of fear that you too would drift and leave me
under the sea to drown in the misery of a broken heart, you promised you
wouldn't.
I'm complicated. I'm afraid of heartbreak. I break hearts to save mine. Before anybody else can.
The pain of loneliness is truly unbearable. I know and feel how I'm going to be this way forever. If
Hell is a place on earth, I must be living it, spending
all day going over the words you had so tenderly given. So wrongfully given. I remember when
love existed between us. How palpable and real it was. How I could
list all the ways you touched my heart. The only person who meant it. The only person who ever did.
My god how I miss you.
Your title, body, notes, and
soul.
Only I could be such an idiot.
Understand, I'm so complicated. I'm so sorry. I know you're not coming back, but I never got to say, "I
love you."