creating my own
magic and peace
i’m keeping my head
in the clouds--

sometimes i look down
& i can see
all that i find
**** near debilitating.

most things are overwhelming.

i can't help it that
i can be overwhelming, too.

am i ******* crazy or are you?

i can't tell and it's putting me
in a pretty ****** *** mood.

everything's back and forth
back and forth
back and forth

i hope my thighs
never shrink to the size
i wish they were

where else would my
beautiful furry friends lay?

if anything i hope
my thighs double in size
making more room
for furry friends

wide awake
eyes darting back and
forth
heart crashes like a wave
into
and into
and into my chest

i should be doing something
something
something

something

something

some—alarm goes off
it’s 3:30 AM

time to get ready for work

a sparkle in your eye
a baby girl's cry

how's she going to spend
the rest of her life?

reaching for perfection
fixing her complexion
and sense of direction

dodging
society's inspections

her father's aggression
her mother's traditional-housewife obsession

trying to escape their
suffocating protection

became an adult
run away across the country
for a new angle of reflection

trying to forget
trying to have no recollection
of their projections
on her own perceptions

learn who she is
over and over again

question question question

she's spending time making
connections between
the past and the present

dad doesn't think it's important
to address his life's trauma.

instead, he takes it, as his father did
and passes it to me with both hands flying from all sides.

mom doesn't think it's important
to address her life's trauma, either.
instead, she helps father pass it on with the,
"wait until he gets home."

she is too traumatized to pass it on herself,
not so traumatized that she can't help pass it
along with the help of another.

and i take it from them, carry it all--

finding safe places to hide it.
finding safe people to confide in
who may see the light in it--
maybe even help me carry some
before i drown in it

or worse:
before i pass it on, too.

emerald linen edged with jade
a book titled with my name

and it’s heavy.

i flip through the pages
but they’re blank.

or maybe they’re written
in a way i cannot see

or maybe it was never written at all.

or maybe it’s a reflection,
an empty book, an empty me.

& maybe I’ll write it someday.