The standards I have set for myself
are almost impossible to return from.
I want a life burning with excitement,
a life where my femininity is celebrated.
In this diaspora I live,
I just need to be great.

No one depends on me.
I cling to myself
like a sloth clinging to its tree.
I have a future that hangs
at the corner of my head,
ready to burst into reality.

Without greatness in mind, I'm merely a breeze,
another woman ready to be sold off for marriage.
But I am nothing without the future I see.
I can’t live
live without the greatness I impeccably need.

I'm all I have.
and I need.

I shelter myself so fiercely.
I am an ongoing discussion;
my life isn't perceived the same.
Do you know I love talking about the most unusual things?
Do you know I can't go a day without my mother's voice?

I wake to a new perception of myself,
one I've made for someone new.
The idea of knowing Diane,
the idea of me being open.
You'll grow tired, I can tell;
I always could.

I'm a girl who is scared:
scared of what the real me reveals,
scared of hurting myself,
scared of how you'll see me.
You can't know how obsessed I become,
you can't know how much power and wealth i crave,
you can't know how much love I hold to give.

I am dull,
I am unfindable.
I am nowhere;
I am lost.
I can't locate what I'm terrified people will see.
They always leave.

“I’m repulsed by you,”
I say.
Maybe that will make me feel better.

Frozen, trying to remember memories
because you made me hate them.
Two sinners bonded,
creating a friendship
against everything in the commandment.

Oh, look what we became
One sinner gave it all.
The other… saw it bare.
The sinners?
Both right.
No wrong.

The sinners are separated.
One saw it as a joke.
One swore it all.
One never forgave.
Both fell.

The Devil laughed.

I saw.