the reason your joke isn't funny
has nothing to do with "politically correct,"
a phrase you throw out in vitriolic attacks
so mismatched with my gentle
"can we not?"

you think that you're edgy
and subversive
and i am just
sensitive.
you think that you're some comedic rogue
sticking it to censorship and "the man,"
which is ironic because
every joke you make sits
right within the lines
drawn for you by a society that's been telling you
w  h a t
t o
t h i n k
since day one,
and actually by perpetuating the stereotypes and ideas
already ingrained in our culture,
you become the man,
man.

you are not an artist,
you do not create,
you are not the revolution,
and you can't fight the system
when the system is you.

now sit the **** down.

i watched two entire movies last weekend,
which was a feat because
the chunk of time a movie demands
is numbered in the massive list
of commitments i am hesitant to make.

i watched two movies about
the fight to find a place
in a culture constructed to benefit the few
at the cost of the many,
and as always it astonished me
when the people around me seemed surprised.
"it's a good thing we have come so far,"
they will say,
as if inequality is a thing of the past.
as if we don't still live in a world
where people are killed based on
the color of their skin
or their expression of gender
or sexuality or
love.
like little girls don't still grow up
bombarded with the message that they are objects
designed to be pretty and pleasing.
like our cops aren't killing black kids.
as if my government does not deny
my ****** autonomy.

it is exceedingly difficult to fix a problem
that you pretend does not exist.

I am really excellent at ruining things
by saying things I know I shouldn't.
"I'm going to chase her away,"
I say,
"By always telling her how afraid I am of losing her."
You laugh and tell me
I'm probably right.
I think that may have been the first time I really understood
that "tell her how you feel" isn't always
good advice.
So I told you I loved you in code
and kept smiling,
because I am impossibly wrong for you,
and I want you to be happy
even more than I want you.

the nagging pinpricks that flower in my chest
every time i hold my tongue
when i could take a stand
exhaust me.
some days i wish i were not stirred
by every minor injustice,
by every casual -ism.
i am not all angles and shards.
some days i am soft lines and rounded edges,
some days i am petal-small and twice as fragile,
some days i am tired.
some days the inevitable backlash
of speaking my mind
can send me reeling.
the accumulation of anger and dismissal and mockery
piles upon my shoulders
and seems sometimes too heavy to carry.

but even on these days,
these quiet, glass-***** lows,
i know why i am fighting, and
i know to the core of my being that
i
will
never
stop.

less than one month into the new year,
and already i have made and broken resolutions,
quickly abandoning the poorly planned promises
i made myself.
i don't know what i was expecting.

i heard somewhere that it takes thirty days
to break or establish a habit.
thirty days.
five sets of six,
three sets of ten,
three sets of five sets of two.
you can't get four from thirty.

and i meant to go somewhere else with this,
draw it into extended metaphor,
but now the girl next to me is chewing gum,
and i want to cry.
i don't want to be a person
who freezes up at the sound of
saliva and substance.
it is far too easy to make my skin shrink tight
and start to itch.
i can't just pull it off,
and i hate feeling trapped.

i hate you now, too, for doing this.
i know it's not malicious or intentional,
but i will still resent you for as long as i know you
because you made me feel this way.
isn't that ridiculous?
but you know what else is ridiculous
is that the mind and body that have survived nineteen years
(despite my best efforts)
spiral out of my control
every time someone decides to chew.
i wish i could not be controlled
by something so simple and small.

(i think maybe the metaphor wrote itself.)

she's one of those girls with
painted eyes and
long sleeves in summer,
a vacant stare
and nowhere left to turn,
long red lines
slashed over years of cross hatched moon white scars.
she'll tell you dying is an art.

cigarette filter ringed with red lipstick,
she pursues her death in slow steps,
still hoping in some hidden secret place
for someone to kiss her wrists and tell her she did okay,
to fall in love with her beautiful tragedy.

and she is beautiful,
but not for the reasons she's assembled in her head.
there is nothing lovely or romantic
in her quest for self-destruction,
but there is beauty in her strength.
the glory is not in her pursuit of death,
but her ability to live.
she does not need you to save her,
and you cannot,
as much as she'll beg you to try.

kiss her lips instead of her scars.
love the breath in her lungs and the life in her veins.
treat her body like something too precious to destroy.
give her love to hold onto
while she learns to create her own.

it is up to you to love her,
should you choose.
it is up to her to decide
that death can wait.

my desire to build a world
where every little girl knows she is good enough
is enough to overpower
my desire to be liked.
i am done making pleasant
my priority.