When I look at you and realize
somewhere in the clockwork of my heart
I still lose a second for you.

She says she can
make the sky change into
the colours of shame:

but how could she have known
that I already walk
with a cloud over my head?

I was the one who swallowed the sun
and yet it is your touch that burns
on to my skin like an insignia of shame;
halos of quiet desperation,
a footprint on the welcome mat to our own
little hell.

So the next time you cry for your skin,
remember
I scar for you.

That I'm cute
Beautiful
Pretty

And I tell them that
It's okay that I'm not
Because I know I'm not
But I don't like being lied to

I know I'm not
Because I can't let tears
Drip down my cheeks
As they shimmer in the dim light
Of the movie credits

I sob until
My face is red and damp and puffy
And I'm clinging to your sleeve
And just crying so uncontrollably
That people sitting next to us
In the dark theater
Might glimpse over to see if maybe
I have a reason to cry so hard.

Does shehave cancer?
Is she missing a leg?
Did her crack-addict mother die when she was an infant?
Why is this bratty straight white blonde girl crying while watching Selma/Dallas Buyer's Club/The Help?

I have to brush my hair
Instantly
When I get out of the pool
In the summer
(Hopping from foot to foot of course
Because the sun has baked the concrete)
Because if I don't
It becomes a half-curly knotted mess.

And if I don't braid it directly after that
Then it dries
In resemblance to a Yield Sign
In a somewhat triangular form

And I'm chubby.
Not fat. It would be better if I were fat.
If I were fat then things would be
Proportionalish
But instead I'm just
A 5'2 and 3/4" girl
With DDs that no one wants
Because "***** don't count when you're chubby"
And baby fat that lounges on my stomach
No matter how many kilometers I row.

My fingers are too small for my hands.
My glasses make my eyes look huge.
My lips are forever chapped.
My cheeks are overly red.
My eyes are too dark to be pretty
And I know it.
I know all of it.

I've lived in my body for longer than you have.
So don't lie to me.
Don't tell me that I'm cute
Beautiful
Or god forbid pretty
Because I really
Really
Hate being lied to.

I lopped up an orange
and let the juice run down my throat
the way you drink fire
and breathe into me.

Don’t listen to a word that escaped my lips
when I stood with a foot out the door
and myself out of my mind;
I’ve no other way
to keep still
the fires that rage in my belly
sometimes spew out of me in a definite set of words:
leave if you must.

I have shaky hands and I spill a little heartbreak wherever I go.

Oh god
when it’s all over
we still have to clean up.

I learnt this year
that twelve months is not a long time.

And suddenly I was up staring at the dates
burning past; I
was still sunken in the last wintersleep
when spring danced its dance
and left me watching
from the dark corner
of the bar that my life had become:
the dim lights, and broken hearts,
and the drunken thought of you
rushing in and waltzing out.

I learnt that
you are only as tired
as your last mistake.

And that people only remembered
what they wanted to forget.

I began to measure time
in the ways your laughter changed
from a river-burst resonance of joy,
to a difficult trickle of a mighty
stream
drying up.

Can't you see how
it's a long way
down
from the haunt of the
stars stop shining
when you shut your eyes.

I sometimes
break my lines
blur between happiness
and being awake I
can barely feel anything
when you speak.

It's not quietude, nor
speechlessness it's
the way my mind grows
into a cancer of memories-
how one potentially harmful
dies everyday like clock-
work can't make time
stop the way you
do.

I break between
my lines some-
time pours into your eyes.

We can speak in fine tongues
and drink wine older than our hours
but when it comes to you I
let my tongue tie
itself in a knot.

I tend to
break into my lines
which is why you could never
know that after I said I love
you never came.