Gall, dad
If I had my way with money
I would make something out of it
A house of credit cards
Write my poems on all that paper with no true value
I mean
You trade your thoughts for George Washingtons and Abraham Lincolns
Well
I keep mine
To help make more
People
Like the ones on our currency, but currently
I don't think you understand where I'm coming from
And as I sit here
Tapping away with my thumbs on an electronic device that you thought made up for my childhood
I wonder
What did you trade for me?

I'm not the girl you think I am
Not really, anyway
There's a lot more to me than the girl in Dr. Seuss pajama bottoms, shrinking beneath the expectations you have set for me
I wish I knew what your expectations are
But it's hard to reach for a bar you can't see
It's hard to mold myself into something that you will accept and place on the mantle of a fireplace so that when strangers come over you can point to me and say that you are proud
I'm not sure if you want candlesticks or a picture frame or a book full of wonderful accomplishments
I could be all of those things, if you wanted
I'm not the girl you think I am
Not really, anyway
I'm stronger than my trembling bottom lip and the tears that break through the walls of my heart sometimes
I wish you weren't so logical and demanding of evidence you can hold in your hands
Because in my mind there's a gold mine of things I am trying to become
And none of them can be deposited in an ATM or withdrawn from a checking account
I'm sorry that I'm not real enough for you
And I'm sorry that you won't step into my mind for a second
So I can show you
The girl behind the numbers

the type of girl
who will say "i love you"
first

And who am I to think I should be loved
[When I’m not even sure what it means
Being me
Anymore]
So I’m tucking away the parts of me
[The Kate Lyn you know and love]
That shouldn't exist That love you
[You won’t have that frustrating child at your feet
Tugging on your shirt for reassurance
Anymore]

I’m closing off the eyes I only had for you
[Forever]
And
[In the meantime]
I’ll learn Braille
[So when you’re ready]
I will trace your spine with my fingertips
To see the name you’ve made for yourself
[Maybe you’ll even let me read your lips
With my own

But I get too far ahead of myself
By wishing that
Don’t I, Love?]

And who am I to think I should be loved
[For all that I am]
When I don’t even know what makes up all that I am
[I have yet to discover my favorite flavor of ice cream
And every stable person ought to know something like that,
I think,
Just in case.]

Who am I to think that you would love me

[I suppose that you did press your lips to my pages
Leaving kisses in the footnotes of my story
Burning away the definition of ‘just friends’]
There are four holes in my story now
[I counted]
When I tell people what happened to us

But love is more than that

[I think
That’s what I would like to learn
At least
By tucking myself away into an envelope for a while
Or perhaps into a bottle
I'd look prettier then
Knees against my chest
Watching my breath fog the glass
Taking my finger to draw hearts in the condensation
Letting it dry
Just to trace it again
Until you choose to see it
Getting drunk off my own message]

There’s more to me than the parts that love you
[I hope]

So I’m tucking myself away
Like I’ve said
[But hopefully not all of me
Because that would mean I can’t find any part of me
That cannot live without you]

Until I know the meaning of me
Until I can say I’ve left my hand on a stove for too long
[Experimenting with other love
Getting truly burned by a person that isn’t you]

I will not let my pencil be my driftwood anymore
[In this tempest we ignore]
I will wash myself up onto white beaches
Exploring the farthest reaches of my mind
[To fill those empty places I never take time to think about
With useful things
Like white roses and garden gnomes
Every yard ought to have those,
I think,
Just in case]

I’m going to stretch myself
[Until I’m thin enough to spread across a page
To be read like a book
Full of poetry that isn’t about you]
I hope you know how much it will hurt to do something like that
To let myself be put on display
[In some foreign library in a distant country]
To be looked through and seen
By eyes that aren’t yours
Because you’ll be somewhere else
[Doing useful things
Like matching socks
Or playing cards
Something like that]

I’m going to live without you
[For a while,
My love]
All those places that I’ve been wanting to see

I’ll see alone
First



[I feel that every person ought to be alone
At least for a little while
At some point
Before they can truly be happy with another]

And if you ever care to find me
[You know where]
Open me up on your card-playing table
[And if I've got white roses resting in my hair
And burns on the palms of my hands]
It will mean
[That I’ve seen all I need
And learned Braille enough]
It will mean
That I have learned what it
[Truly]
Means
To live
[Without you]

All this time you told me that the cotton candy was pink
So I ate at the fluff behind the drywall
I ate it all away
Wondering why I got colder as I did so

Do you know why the peacocks are always alone
I’ve never seen more than one at a time
And I suppose it is because they show all of their colors at once
That isn’t allowed in this game, is it
I thought not

I don’t want to have that kind of plumage anymore
Turn my skin gray and wrinkled and I will sit by like the elephant in the room
Because I never asked you questions you didn’t like
I never asked you to empty the sky into a pitcher just for me

Do you know why the peacocks walk all alone?
Curious, isn’t it?
No friends at all.

i want to backpack across the ridges of your rib cage
see what keeps your heart from collapsing on itself
examine the stitching, the rivers of veins and where they lead
i want to put a flag
or at least drop a candy wrapper
somewhere
and when you'd bend over to examine it before throwing it away
i'd like to think that
for once
you were picking up on me

Oh that I believed in solipsism
All those fears of gossip would blossom in little polyps all over my mind
Making what everyone thought of me
Simply- everything I think of myself
Oh that I could reach the first impressions with an all-encompassing blindfold
And emerge from behind the curtain as the person I am in this moment
If ice cubes melt I surely don't exist anymore
Because that was years ago
So what am I?
Oh that I didn't believe in a God
And the only person to hide from was myself
Which in itself is impossible
But disappointing the only other person who knows of my existence
Makes it harder to find reasons to be permanent
Perhaps ice cubes are better for this reason
Becoming less and less significant as you warm them with your hands
Because
I don't want to be anything
To anyone
(Not anymore)