It’s a cursed game of peek-a-boo we play.
I wait for you to notice me
Behind closed hands.
Of course, you never will.
We chase each other around barriers
Thrown up by distance—
Or is it your resistance?
I know I don’t even know you that well.
I want to.
I want you.
But I’m hiding behind closed hands,
Ashamed of what I feel.
I know I can’t have you.
And if I told you how I felt,
I’m worried I’d scare you away.
So I hide behind closed hands
And tell myself:
Not now. Maybe someday.
It’s better for the both of us
If I play this little game because
I don’t want to scare you,
Boo.
Peek-a-boo,
I think I like you.
The sad thing?
I know that you can’t like me too.

I take a breath of the cool morning air.
The sky is gray with after-dawn.
My lips taste of dew and salt,
Bare toes on a damp dock tap now in count.
One. Two. Three. Leap.
I plunge into an endless bubble whirl,
As simultaneously delicate and strong
As the vermilion tendrils that wave at me from the sea floor.
My feet kick, brushing one.
Shy fish bat at my toes and then retreat into the kelp
As I open my eyes
Blinking out into the brine.
It stings, creating a fog that I have to shake
With focus on my oscillating feet.
When my vision clears, it is like waking into a dream.
A world of possibilities is born as I take in all the life.
Living things are displayed before me
In a beautiful vital rainbow
Of silvers and blues,
Grays and greens,
And I am instantaneously in love with it.
Only stopping to rub my eyes once,
I dolphin kick my way to the floor below.
The sand is a soothing loam between my toes.
A hermit crab scuttles across my foot.
I swear, he grinned at me, just ask him.
Oops. He’s gone.
As I turn my gaze upward and take in the rippling sky,
I feel my lungs shall burst.
Though if not for my anatomy,
I think I could stay here forever.
Paddling out my goodbyes, I am now on the rise,
Escorted by what seems like millions of cascading tiny fish.
Higher and higher I climb,
Heading a parade I know only I shall finish,
As one by one they peel off, and once more I am alone.
Eyes shut tight, I break the surface.
Pulling myself back up onto the small wooden dock.
My skin shines bright with the dampness
Now rolling in small beads down my thighs.
I hug my knees to my chest and stare at the vastness before me.
The air is cool, still morning.
I’ve never felt more alive.

At night I hear them
Tiny footsteps
Sneaky little feet running around my head
The creatures they belong to
Biting on my brain cells and
Rummaging around my memories like
They're trinket hunting in a dusty old attic and
Pulling out the most repulsive, musty things they can find,
The things I hid in boxes, embarrassed about,
Old snapshots of a past I’d rather not remember
But they always creep back out of there come family reunions.
These sneaky little creatures that bite on the back of my brain
Cackle over my most mortifying trinkets,
The kind that I try to give away but the thrift stores won’t take them
And I’d be too humiliated to sell them directly
Because that would mean I’d have to share the fact that I had them
When the fact of the matter is that I’m walking in the snow
And trying to cover up my footprints
With an evergreen branch
That does nothing but leave bigger, clearer marks on
The cold white unforgiving ground
And makes the marks more visible
But less obviously mine.
And the sneaky little creatures don’t like this,
Because it’s taking away from the treasures they keep
Up in my attic with the moth-eaten shawls
And dusty old rocking chair stashed in the corner.
They love the old, repulsive musty things
That I don’t want and cannot give away,
And so they make me look them over and over
And shove the hideous things into my face
Dissolving my sense of self as easily as
Salt into water
And gradually changing my taste buds
From honey to brine
As I wonder
Why, why, why
And the sneaky little feet that run around my head
Turn heavy, as if clad in iron boots
And every little trinket that they share
Makes them less and less easy to ignore.

When it all comes down to it,
At the innermost core
We are our own hearts.
Not the ones pulsing blood like the beat of the ocean
Or salty-sick tears to mimic emotion,
But a bright, shining moonstone of a heart,
Plucked from the sky and infused with our qualities,
All of our dreams, personality
Fears and realities
All pulled together from mutual disparity
Into the real us, something of clarity
All tucked away at
The core
Our core

But we treat it like an apple core
Once round and full
Take bites of it
Spit out the seeds
Throw it on the ground
And let the birds peck out the juice
And we tuck ourselves away, bundled up in insecurities
Unconfidence
The need to please
The standards of society
And hope for nothing more
Than to be loved and thought of highly.
It’s the side of us you’ll never see-
I’d like to wear it on my sleeve.
Excuse me for a sec while I go dancing in the rain so
The drops can hide my tears and I can laugh away the pain
I’ll pull all my outer layers off and throw them on the ground…
Let the real me shine through
Or I would
I guess
If only I knew how to.

Until then, I content myself with
Showing little pieces of it when I feel most comfortable,
Looking for a diamond of it in a loved one’s smile
So I can find perfection for a while.
In the core,
My core, your core, doesn’t even matter,
These little moonstone cores are beautiful and someday
I would like to have the confidence to wear mine on my finger-
I don’t care if it’s a flawed stone anymore.
I’m done examining it for imperfections.
Because it’s mine
And I am proud of it.
Its truth is in its beauty
And it is beautiful because
It is the real me.

Someday I promise I will gather up
The strength to wear it proudly
Like the people who are braver than I.
Until then, I wear myself
Like a badge on my shirt pocket
And try to notice if
I’ve subconsciously let it slide
Under the heavy suede jacket
Of the expectations of others.

I’ll take it out, polish it, and display it in a place of prominence again.
Because it’s my core
All mine
And I want to let it shine.