there is too much space
on the sides of my face
and sometimes i imagine
slicking it off
someone once told me
that's called "self-hate"
but i traded their terminology in for
"self-improvement"
everytime.

maybe that's why
i think of "hate"
everytime someone asks
about a synonym
for "beauty."

some of my friends have this habit
of waking up with letters on their foreheads
and falling asleep with numbers
on their lips

what happened to
when you grow up,
you can be anything

now people are essentially saying
you lost the right to a future
with your grade on that math test

do you see an L
on my face?

i won't starve just because
i'm not a human
calculator.

they say we accept the love
we think we deserve
so where's the love i deserve
where's the love
where's the love

i got in a fight with her daughter
the other day and now it's like
i'm a kid again
and she's the woman
who thinks children should be seen
and not heard

but i should be seen; i need to be heard

i'm going to scream until my throat bleeds.

i don't believe in being in love
i believe that there are people i love
and there are people you love
and there are a few people we love
but we will never love
each other
because that's
a fairytale --
-- and everything else in them
was false.

garrett,
did you know that
you were there when the
numbness started?
i looked over to you and said
with him gone
i have nothing
to angst over
you laughed
isn't that a good thing?
and at the time i felt
relieved.