A click rang through my ears as I locked the door.
A bang sounded off around me as I dropped the toilet seat.
All of my senses were blind, yet my taste was heightened.
I sat down and let my feet dangle in open space,
toes much too young to touch the ground.
The walls around me vibrated and a sugar plum anthem pounded in the room next door.
The door rattled with knocks,
dancers hurrying to use the bathroom in between rehearsals.
Bobby pins littered the floor, and a run in my tights that was once the end of the world was now deemed insignificant.

My arms grasped a happy yellow handle, my stomach rumbled with fear.
A forgotten lunch had forced my father to drop off the forbidden red box sitting in my lap.

I tore through the paper, pink nail polish flaking off of my fingers.
I reached inside and pulled out my delicious contraband.

My baby teeth broke through the sesame bun, as my small eyes swelled.
I forced myself to swallow the meat, my throat succumbing to salt from both the pickles and my tears.

Ketchup burned, dripping red with the pain from my soul.

I was the exemplary representation of a young ballerina. A girl struggling to find balance between two notions. The first that you must never starve yourself, and the second that you must never eat unhealthy

A splatter of ketchup fell onto my leg
Once I left that room everyone would know what it was

Everyone would know what I had done

At only seven years old I had already earned my scarlet letter

There used to be something romantic about living to see your funeral

Seeing who cares
Seeing who pretends to

This romance gets lost on you when it truly happens

When you’re a ghost walking through your past

Everyday, living a memory
Like you already left

My desk is smooth because my mind is rough
There is no clutter in my working surroundings because my thoughts are cluttered enough

My computer, on the other hand, wears its years
It's colors faded and adorned with age

enfeebled and matured, it sits
my power button lies encrusted in dust

each key wears a red poppy pin,
demonstrating dedication at the latest hours of the night
the meeting of fingers in the roughest hours of life

only two keys lay shiny
a simple colon and parenthesis

two keys known by many to frown
forced to live in eternal sadness

here my keys reflect their youth and their joy
only ever being forced to smile

these keys will forever keep my writing eternally gratified  
they're my endless supporters
patrons of my art
looking at me with glee every time I sit down to compose
the only ones in my life always happy to see me

they're the smiley face on my keyboard

Her name is dangerous but her face is a disguise
She's an enemy who fights with peace and rivals any previous jealousy

She's the exemplification of teenage relatability and she knows it

She's the movie you watch when your boyfriend breaks up with you,
You know she's bad yet you crave the cringe of all her qualities

She's enough to turn any girl into a *******

your tiny hand unravels and the ornament hits the ground with a crash
you cry as you miss the tree by a mile,
Mom hurries to clean up the glass.

An aunts arms imprison me, protecting my bare feet
skin unscathed by the problems of the world
It's baby's first Christmas again.

Years pass and now we're under the stars
you lay in a tent, shadow bunnies hopping all around you.

My face is invisible but my voice is loud and clear,
High pitched and delicate as I take Dad's camera and begin to narrate.
Old enough to tell my own stories now.

I try to cross the damp wooden log, mountain water flowing below me.
My voice goes silent and the screen goes dark with a sudden splash.

I walk down the stairs, you smile and Dad films.
His camera has now been replaced by a handheld mirror of technology.

My dress flows past my ankles, my date appears at the door
A new voice has entered our house and our lives.
Parent interrogation fills my prom night and my cheeks fill with color.

I laugh and I grab the remote, I find the luminescent arrow with a line adorned below it
I eject the CD but download the memories into my mind forever

Last night I took off my face
When we met, I didn’t even recognize her
The next morning I put it back on
And it was like everything I ever thought I knew was erased

I didn’t know who I was anymore
But I knew what people thought of the real me
I may never know what they think of my face
A face doesn’t provoke actions the way I did yesterday

I don’t know if we’re better with or without faces
I don’t know if it’s a preference
I don’t know if it’s something we decide for ourselves
I don’t know if someone out there has all the answers

I do know that without a face we’re just souls
And I also know that with a face we’re just people
But it takes a whole lot more than both of those things to make a Human Being

It's a fortune cookie religion,
Where we abide by our own truths

We crack them open in the kitchen,
And spill out our papers of youth

We count our lucky numbers,
As we count our own turns of fate

It's a crystal sugar altar now,
And this cookie is my soulmate