I am so quiet on the outside
So loud within
And maybe you can hear it,
If you really listen.

Sometimes I just want to scream
Assuring myself it's all a bad dream
Lying to myself so it won't seem
As hopeless.

I'm stuck in this gray place,
Just trying to get by everyday.
Why did I ever settle for this way
Of life?

It's funny how I feel for you
Like when you make the sky turn a perfect blue
Like when you make it all seem so brand new
All these beautiful things you do.

I am not in love with you like a boy loves a girl
And you are not the center of my world
Yet you are such an important puzzle piece,
Such an essential part of me.

When a chill goes up and down my spine
When I finally realize that you're mine
I should be grateful, happy, should feel fine
But I find myself walking such a fine line.

Nineteen, I'm turning nineteen on Monday.
Eighteen, the birthday I knew I was in love with you.
Seventeen, we spent the night drinking tequila and skinny dipping.
Sixteen of my poems are about you.
Fifteen, the year I didn't see you in the shadow of someone else.
Fourteen, the day I left.
Thirteen, the times we've spoken in the past 6 months.
Twelve photos of us together.
Eleven more of you.
Ten, it's around this time I start to miss you.
Nine songs reminding me of you.
Eight notes humming your name.
Seven hundred and sixty
Six miles from you to me.
Five times I've cried in your car,
Four not knowing that there would be
Three words that I couldn't say, because you stayed
Two minutes, when I needed
One hour; alone with you.

Nineteen, I'm turning nineteen on Monday.
And for the first time in four years, you won't be there.

I once again found myself intrigued by the ominous darkness.
Your roar cracked the skies but your growls enticed me.
You lashed out, ribbons of plasma sent fluttering through the clouds.
I watched as every little spark scattered into aether
I listened as you sang, I watched as you danced, I laid awake as you wept.
So strong yet so fragile.
Finite and fascinating.
Chaotic.
Serene.
You are the eye of my storm.

I am a **** good woman.

I may not be perfect, but I am. Does that confuse you? I love the way my smile shines when I see my reflection, chip and all. I enjoy feeling my hair blow with wind, or wet upon my back. I can stand **** for hours, gazing at every curve, or lack there of, that has graced my silhouette with its presence over the past 19 years and 7 months. Content.

I am not curvaceous nor too thin. I stand before myself. Just a body that did not ask for it's formation when it was sent from heaven, still holding hips that will bear children, breast that will feed villages, hands to uplift the child.
I am a **** good woman.
I come from a womb of the strongest woman I know. I bleed blood from her veins, bared skin that she's given me. I am molded from great women. Their features arrange themselves on my face, their vocabulary runs rapid across my tongue, memories madly through my mind.
I am a **** good woman
I have loved fiercely with compassion. It is without vanity I have compromised myself to love.
I am a **** good woman.*
How dare you think I am not enough?
I came from your rib! I am a part of you.
I have walked miles for mankind, cried for those before us, hurt from wounds you thought were long healed.
Still, I rise.
Impatient to be loved by a man worthy of my greatness.
A man worthy of the long walks of lonesome, sight seeing of chauvinists and fools gold we mistook as lovers.
However
With or without man I am woman.
A **** good one at that.