the best outfit
I can pull off
is my own skin

in the morning I feel burned out
a tossed match, colored with shame
I count all that was once mine
the shore, the lake, the forest
even the flaws that hit my arms and my legs
they were a blessing and a curse
and I remember when I was alive,
ablaze, catching fire, burning bright,
I felt it all at the same time, and I was
incandescent

Have you ever been told as a child
that you were difficult to deal with
because you didn’t want to sit down,
or limit your drawings to a paper sheet,
or make all of your homework during the weekend—
all of our family came over, please!—
or didn’t keep quiet when adults told you to,
for you always had the answer right under your tongue?

Did they ever call you
hyperactive, or
a monkey, or
an airhead, or
simply trouble?
Did you just get on their nerves?

I wish I had been like that,
a difficult child.
Why would I say that! That’s nonsense.
I wish I had known how to stay away from the
little adult factory.
When I spoke my mind, it felt like a slap in everyone’s faces
because I had always been silent, and a kid this quiet
when speaks his mind, oh, he roars.
I was talked down when I finally did something I enjoyed
and felt accused because I was,
as they said,
breaking out of my shell.
And if that was a good thing
why did everyone make it seem bad?

If I’m getting my wisdom teeth that means
I can go to the movies with my friends, right?
Not that they’re already going out at night,
or whatever. I guess that’s a word I use now—
whatever. Puberty was when I got the most difficult,
and I wasn’t even that bad.

I was born an easy adult
and I can’t even adult right.
I guess that’s because I was never a difficult child.
I don’t know how far I can push myself
before I fall off the end of the world.

refine me
until i’m edges only
and then wear me on a ring

If you could slide your finger
In the waterline of my eye
Like the sea caresses the coast on a bad day
Make sure it is because I am not crying
For I do not cry, ever