can you tell
when I'm not here
when my head
is worlds away

can you say
where I go
when I don't
want to stay

do you know me
who I am
where I'm going
where I've been

do I know you
who you are
all your goodness
all your sin

I'd like to think
we were tied
together our souls
like binary suns

I'd like to think
we were lovers
stitched together
at the runs

I dream about
a lot of things
of other worlds
and living free

I dream about
a lot of things
I dream of you
do you dream of me

How elegant the sunshine seems
as the rain pours down on the earth!
What luminous and golden beams
shower the Southern world with mirth!

How excellent, in retrospect,
is Summer's passing glance;
how gorgeously do we reflect
upon our August dance!

Yet Winter soon will claim her own
with snow and cold grey ice,
and how I long to see my home
gleaming with the frozen lights!

Summer's a lover in a golden crown,
But Winter's a goddess in a silver shroud.

I used to bury myself in huge jackets.
I'd mope about and hate my curvy body,
hate the way my lips puffed,
my long hair, the way I was soft all over,
the way I was expected to shave
everything but my face.

I used to hate makeup and dresses,
girly movies and shoes and bobby pins.
I hated boybands. I hated pink things.
It took me a long time to realize that
I didn't actually hate these things.
I hated women.

Femininity was lesser. I was not good enough
because of my two X chromosomes,
because of my *****, because of my period.
I was weaker. I was stupider. I was
statistically less likely to succeed,
less likely to be important,
less likely to be loved.

These things weren't right. They were never true.
But it didn't matter, because nine-year-old me
believed them. My opinion didn't start to change
until I was thirteen and I wore a pretty dress
as a character in a home movie we were making
and I walked down the stairs and my friends
whispered whoa.

I began to understand then the power I had.
As a girl I was never lesser. I was never weaker.
Maybe physically, but that was more my personality,
and all those lies I'd told myself about success
about my importance about love
I began to reconsider.
I thought hey wait hold on
this can't be right, I'm not stupid, I'm not weak,
I'm not ugly and I'm not fat
and I'm not any of these things because
I'm a girl.

When I started to see myself as worthy of
other peoples' love, I realized I should love myself.
I don't hide my femininity away in huge jackets anymore.
I don't walk down the street fearful
of the people walking past who seem stronger.
Because in my lipstick and my cute heels,
I am in total control.

Were I a shoe, I would squeak;
For O! to have a tongue
And not be able to speak.

And were I the sea, I would roar;
From dawn to dusk, at everything,
For, being great, I'd want still more.

Were I a swallow, I'd take wing
And make sweet music till I ceased to be -
I would not be a bird who cannot sing.

And were I your heart, I'd show you to love
And teach you the ways of beautiful things,
From us here on Earth to the stars up above.

Were I a flute, were I an axe,
Were I a wish, were I the rain,
Or were I a candle, made of wax;

It matters little, it matters not;
I'd still find a way to say what I thought.

Truth of the matter is, I never was one for essays.
I can insert quotes like mad, I can, but the words
Don't sing for me in papers like they do in poetry.
I can't paint you a world cause you're already
Living in it and you already know it well.
The only gift an essay has to give is analysis and
Let me be honest with you, my opinion
Ain't worth as much as my heartbreak.
Essays don't let me talk like I want,
Don't let me layer in the truth behind a lie.
It ain't fair to kids like me that we get graded
On how well we use big words.
I wanna be graded on a scale I can't trust,
I wanna get credit for making you cry my tears.
Maybe it's hard to be an artist so that
No one will half-*** it: only the idiots who
Wasted art class making cartoons,
Failed English for the sake of their poetry,
The idiots who can do nothing else,
Will be the ones to do nothing else.

o how difficult the years
that weigh on
without you,
the endless nights
with emptiness
my solemn
singular
bedfellow.
what a treachery
is every sunrise
what a regret
is every breath.
and i am sure
you don't feel
this way.
i am sure you
are far away,
in some paradise,
and have found
someone better,
someone new,
someone to
not be alone with.

o how impossible
to explain
the pain of the left
to those who are
leaving.
i would trade
a thousand worlds
that i could
go back in time
and beg you,
don't go.

I do not know how the fashionable people of the past did it.
How were they able to sit still for hours on end?
Shouldn't having money mean doing more?
For I've found that if I sit around for too long,
I stagnate like water, I thicken like blood.

I need to move, need to run in order to breathe,
Need to laugh in order to feel like I exist at all.
Without the confirmation that is my own beating body,
My own moving heart, I might as well fade away,
Might as well be a pixel of static on a TV screen.

In the early morning hours as I lie awake in bed,
I can feel myself slipping away into nothing.
I know that if I lay there long enough I will melt
Into my blankets, and cease to exist.
Most mornings I force myself to move,
Force myself into movement, back into existence!

But some dark rainy day, too soon I fear,
I will lie back on the pillows
and let the sheets take their toll
and I will die even as I live:
stagnant like water
thick like blood.