If this hasn't occurred to you yet,
I am not your average cookie cutter, barbie doll type.
I do not swear to wear pink on Tuesdays
or any day for that matter because pink reminds me of innards
and that isn't exactly something that compliments my complexion,
it only accomplishes making me seem more dead than I already do,
and who wants that?

In reality I am manic pixie dream ******* crack,
one day with dreams of  hair down to my navel,
the next I can hear the hair clippers calling my name.

I cut my hair not because I was looking for attention
but because I do not wish to seek approval,
do not wish to meet stereotypical versions of what girls are
"supposed to look like."
If you tell me I look like a lesbian, I will promptly thank you
for the compliment and send you on your way,
because lesbians are people too, whether or not I am one is irrelevant.
I do not wish for other people to view me as attractive
only for people to view me as I am
whether that is flower child or train wreck
because it changes weekly and sometimes it's both.
my identity is not a fixed point, it is a spectrum
and if the idea of that scares you, just imagine
how much it terrifies me. Some days I am sunshine
and other days I'm a cyclone looking to rip through
anything that's in or even surrounding my path.
The truth is I am the epitome of confusing.

I cut my hair because I am at a pivotal moment in my life,
a point in time where I choose who I wish to become.
I know hair doesn't seem like that big of a factor,
but this is the first of many crucial decisions that I will be forced
to make on my own, and I figure if I can figure out how to
wear my hair, then balancing a checkbook will figure itself out.

The truth is I am horrible with decision making,
and many times crack under pressure
don't know what essay topic to tackle
go back and forth on the topic of college majors,
and while one of those is short term
the other is monumental and keeps me from sleeping sometimes.
I'm usually the neutral one,
the one who agrees to what everyone else wants.
But I need to break that habit before it becomes unhealthy
and i'm pretty sure it already has.
I'm a few steps late in the process,
but the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem
so I'm headed in the right direction.

And so I cut my hair.
watched it as it fell from my head like sad little tendrils of despair,
and formed into a pile that resembled a cat by the time I walked out.
In doing so, I found a new part of myself,
a part that was always there but never really announced itself
When I cut my hair I officially labelled myself as a risk taker,
because the truth is I don't think I've ever been more scared
than I was when those clippers hit the back of my neck
and the weight of my hair fell off my shoulders.
Taking such a huge risk made me feel alive,
and that, is something I'm okay with.

We walked down unpaved roads, kicking up pebbles with our doc martins and inhaling cigarettes in between kisses.
We climbed over a gate marked "No Trespassing" almost every day last spring just to drink coffee with our feet dangling over mounds of white rocks, stacked like abstract sculptures.
We woke up at 6 AM to play on the swing sets at South Abington before kids flooded the mulch with runny noses and raspy voices.
We watched plow trucks sweep up all of our mistakes off of your road from the edge of your bed and counted how many maneuvers it took that driver just to get through your alley way.
You yelled at me for putting my frozen hand on your cheek after I went outside to heat up my car for work.
We sunbathed on your neighbor's roof when the kids were at school and their parents were *******.
We drank cheap beer in the bath tub and pretended we were going swimming.
We told your sister kissing would make her pregnant at your mother's cherry wood coffee table, and acted appalled when she replied, "Well then how come I'm not pregnant."
I rubbed your back as you cried with your hands balled up into fists on your front porch steps.
I sat silently on your bathroom floor while you tore through the house, breaking random things in frustration.
I cleaned the open cut on the side of your jaw with peroxide, and held your knees down with my forearm as you squirmed around in stinging pain, without ever getting a clear explanation as to how it got there.
I drove your sister to school & fumbled over my words after she asked why you don't wanna have dance parties with her anymore.
I sat in the hospital with your mother and read her the newspaper every night after work.
I tried to hold you in bed, but you pulled away from me.
And when spring came around again, I wanted to walk to the quarry but you just wanted to watch tv.
And when summer came around again, there were no make believe swimming pools.
You'd sit down in the shower with your hands over your face, and your legs curled into your chest, trying hard to catch your breath.
I'd put a towel in the dryer and wrap you in it afterward.
I held you as long and as hard as I could,
But you were slipping.
And the second you lost your footing,
And I lost my grip,
You took me down with you
And we hit rock bottom together.
So I guess,
It was never hate that I should've feared.
All along it was love
Because love is more destructive
than hate when it goes to the wrong place

If I could've taken you on that
futon upstairs without knowing there was a chance
of someone walking upstairs to catch us,
you would've been mine. Remember that.
There will always be a next time.

Welcome to the place you’ll find me sitting
helplessly trying to find a way out.
The place you’ll never want to visit again,
you’ll run, at full speed wishing you’d never
said it would be okay for me to
open up and let you see the insides of my
horribly damaged head,
and instead, never brought up the subject
but only find yourself back where you started in this maze
of desperate uncertainty,  
because in this place lies carcasses of dreams
abandoned but never forgotten,
my knobby knees and shaking fingers
just haven’t yet found the strength
to put them back together again.
I've arranged them in patterns that resemble broken things
like china dolls with cracked smiles
and butterfly amputees, this is no picnic.
I am sorry for the horror you will see
in the depths of my cerebral cortex,
I never imagined you’d actually step inside,
and now here you are clawing your eyes out
right beside me screaming at the top
of hoarse lungs and pleading with sad eyes
now just barely bleeding, for a way out,
with a tone just below sad whisper I tell you
I’ve yet to find a ship off of the island of misfit toys,
and for now, you’re just as hopeless as you
found me to be in the beginning.
Just remember you provided the gun and ammunition,
I only loaded it, and gave you a taste for
the possibility of an ending.
I never tempted you with the idea of destruction,
only provided you with its breeding ground
and that's not something I can help or even change.
you've now seen the depths of hell
and men have said it leaves one blind
even if it does come in the shape and size of panic attacks
pain killers, ***, and a heart rate that laughs at the word fast,
races beyond it, bearing sharp teeth and a smile,
swallows me up like the ever raging sea.
My body was not built for this type of misery,
my skin cracking and my kneecaps knocking
like a sort of secret police to tell me
that it's getting out of hand again.
Marionettes sewn straight into skin,
dancing just like all the other puppets
we live a life of lavish lamentation and hold up
bronze metals just for showing up and sticking around.
How much does life mean now?
Do not tell me I am not suffering because now
you have seen it and it will never leave your memory.
I bestow this upon you because you chose not to take me seriously.
This is a message from the island of misfit toys,
I may seem like I'm keeping it together just fine,
but beyond every door lies a secret,
beyond every shining light, a shadow
and beyond every smile, someone is broken.

It’s scary as hell how last week you held me
right before I said goodbye,
and in my head I was screaming ‘I love you’
hoping so badly that you didn’t see it in my eyes.
Because I know it’s too soon for such weighty exclamations,
and the last thing I want to do is scare you away,
but you make my mind race and my heart ache
and the soles of my shoes always seem
to point in your direction
the way a plant grows toward the sun.
You are my most significant source of light.

Today you told me you were scared.
Because you like me so much,

All I could say was "i know that feeling"
because even though I've given up on impending forevers
I'm doomed to believe that forever would
best be spent with you.
You won't read these words for a long time
because it won't be the right time, for a long time
I'm just fast forwarding because
my heart doesn't know patience,
my heart knows bed sheets and now, now, now.
Rushed beginnings and painful endings.
You are neither. You are kind and respectful,
and won't pass boundaries, even though realistically
I never set them. You are a new kind of amazing
and it is exhilarating.