I was born lavendar but melted and sunk and dripped down walls like hot wax until I found myself pooled at the bottom, only my dad used to smoke indoors and drywall and smoke have an infatuation, so now I am only a smoky maroon.
I never used to believe in ghosts, but now EMF scanners explode and the room is chilled every time I take a good, long look in the mirror.
I used to be sturdy,
like a tree with more rings than my mother keeps in her top drawer, but now my joints crack like firewood every morning when I get out of bed and I stretch wide enough to fill a whole forest.
I used to shudder when boys looked at the pattern on my skirt,
but eventually the dip of my collarbones became a sanctuary for every pious boy to visit, eyes closed and speaking in tongues, the heads of their beds becoming crucifixes but the only thing getting nailed was me.
I realize I am different now. But I also realize that photographers find smoke beautiful, and babies can see the dead. i remember that marshmallows are best over campfires and that some people still believe in god.

In this moment, I am standing here with my feet unsteady. My room is a war-zone belonging to a person who never outgrew five on somedays but on others has matured past forty. I am sixteen and I am learning that love does not come when needed, wanted, or even when you're ready. I have stood for too long with my arms outstretched, a cavity between them for someone else to fill, but all they leave behind is blemished skin. My hands, numb at the fingers, don't know what their use is anymore. Love comes when you recognize it. It comes like a bee sting. When it leaves, it takes chunks and craters. It leaves a stinger pumping poison until you locate the burning. This could take years. For now, you are the moon. Look at you, glowing madly for all the wrong reasons. The lights in my room rust into the wall with a smolder, the cassettes play the color blue and the bottles, with their stale water, are all the fixtures in my room left static. See, either way I'm either making people stationary or throwing them away. I know that we are all on our own path to fate, which remains the same, hurdling around the sun at what seems like a snail's pace. I am going to stay here a little longer and hope my path will cross another's, like a road pierced with train tracks. Crash into me. Make it hurt. Make the wait worth everyone before you who fell short. Make me remember what my hands are for.