I want to be a superhero. I want to shoot heats beams from my eyes like I shoot...spit, from my uh, mouth. I want to save people in the burning building. Lift girders with a finger and hope with my words. I'd give food to the poor and teach respect to the rich.
   I want to show the kid on the ledge that the bully is the loser and not him. That he has a life to live and what an ******* says is just a bunch of ****. And no matter how many times he jumps I'll pull him back on the ledge, show him that the hero he looks up to was just like him. Show him miracles happen and if he's lucky he'll become the hero in his eyes. Show him scars are scars and they're just out battle wounds, that even his hero gets hurt sometimes.
   I want to be like Tony Stark. Have an ark reactor in my chest powering a suit of armor. Knowing that any second my heart will be torn apart. Be like the Hulk cause I have such anger inside that sometimes I want to turn green and break things.
   I want to have the power of Thor, and show others that despite their expectations that deep down I have something they won't ever have: Compassion.
   I want to be a superhero. Because despite my expectations I am a hero in someone else's eyes. In another world, place, dimension I am the hero I want to be. And I know that eventually I will be a hero. I may not have powers but I have enough hope that maybe one day: I will.  
   But this isn't the future. I am in the present. And right now I am not the hero. Maybe I'm the villain.

I.
i was fourteen when i learned that columbus brought
guns and shackles to the new world instead of turkey.
last weekend, when you told me what happened to you
the night of october fourteenth, i had to check both of
your wrists to make sure they weren’t bound together.
i had to grow sea legs in the backseat of a parked car.

II.
sometimes hands are not kind.
sometimes hands explore people like diseases invade towns,
choking the distance between breath and body in seconds.
when he touched you that night, you must have confused
the cobweb of lines across his palm for transatlantic cables.
you must have forgotten that each year, the ocean spits out the
skeletons of ships who rattle the tides without her permission.

III.
when christopher columbus hit land, he wanted gold so badly that
he excavated it from the hearts of natives, took a midas hammer
to their spines until they bled pools of light around his ankles.
that autumn night, it happened to you too, didn’t it, golden girl?
except afterward, the stain you left on the white sheets was red.

IV.**
in 1491, no one thought that the earth was flat.
sometimes history tries to rewrite things that make no sense,
that should never have happened to cities carved from trees
or girls whose bodies sing electricity into the midnight air.
if you listen, you can still hear the hiss of sparks on cold flesh.
you won’t forget the smell. they can’t remember anything else.

Once we had
the whole world
all to ourselves,
we baked potatoes
in the fire,
named the constellations,
became blood siblings.

I traced your cheeks,
saw moons
inside you pupils,
tasted the flavor
on your full lips.

Cupid was hiding
in the woods nearby,
waiting for the perfect shot.
He hit a bulls eye
& we kissed into eternity,
forever laid
down our hearts.

Now we lie
a million miles apart.

I fell
into an ocean
of bed sheets
desperately trying
to drown myself.

But instead
I met with
your overpowering
smell.

So I held
my breath
and suffocated
instead.