My body is a canvas
The type you get at Michael's in a pack of three
For $12.99
Pre-gessoed and ready to go
Though they probably won't last forever,
Hanging on a nail in your grandpa's home
I paint my wrists with watercolor bruises,
Purple and blue
Like clouds drifting by a setting sun
I sketch out lines across my thighs
My every action amplified into a performance art piece
I draw with little dots of ink, until I get a picture as permanent than I am  
I cut and dye my hair like cloth
Knowing one day
I will figure out how to stitch myself back together

I got a tattoo last night
Did it myself, all needles and ink
Sterile like the bathroom floor
And wet rags dyed black and pink

It was a little picture of a house
Sitting on top of my left hip
Pinpricks of ink pushed into my skin
And not once did I let the needle slip

You can not drink brackish water
Halfway will never be good enough

I've gotten so used to greyscale
On this faulty monitor
That I've almost forgotten what colors look like
As they dance across the screen

I have had enough of this monochromatic monotony
So I snip wires, rip out cords
Do anything I can to see if I can get the color back
The only cable I leave alone is the one connecting it to the wall

I stand there in the robotic wreckage
And see a bit of red blinking on the screen
My world is not yet in technicolor
But this is a start.

I miss the feeling of clay under my hands
A spinning wheel, my foot on the pedal.
The rough silver plate always sands
Down the skin on my hand but I don't mind

I can build vessels out of the earth
Pulling cups and bowls up from the ground
In this instant, my hands are worth
A thousand vases glazed in gold

I dip them in thick buckets of color
And place the ceramic uncertainties in the furnace
We both come alive in fire
And emerge even stronger than before

Today I went kayaking
I glided across the cool waters
Brackish and so devoid of life
This time of year

As I drifted underneath the bridge
I imagined it painted like the Sistine chapel
A choir of angels hidden beneath the barnacle encrusted concrete
For only the fish to see

I had almost forgotten that the river existed
Five minutes away
And all I wanted to do was paddle
Out into the ocean

I am spectacularly
Ignorant. I cannot understand anything
Complex, not to mention intelligent.
Somehow, I am miserable at
Every new thing I attempt, I
Fail at the same things I watch my peers
Excel at.
Over the past few years,
I have found that I am worth
Absolutely nothing. I hate myself
More than I ever thought was possible.
I really don't think
I'm going to be okay.