Not Yet Lived

You tell me that I am young

That life has merely licked me, not stung

That I do not understand, that I have not yet lived

Enough to grasp the substance

I have known disease

Slow tears, muted pleas

Pain that nothing could appease

I have known the smell of hospitals for summers

The beeping and slurping of machine in massive numbers

I have spoken to voiceless loved ones,

Loved ones with teethless mouths and twisted tongues

Distorted jaws and wheezing lungs.

We have spoken with little green charts

And broken hearts

From the inability to connect the mouth to the thoughts in the head

And I left without understanding,

What they had said

Because I eventually had to let it go

(I still don't know)

I have spent countless summer nights

In nature’s garb, floating silently in a river

So warm that my limbs, skimming the surface, didn't shiver

Under a clear sky, the stars like paradisiac lights

Without anyone ever finding out

About these wild and primal escapades

I've drank, I've smoked

I have burned my throat

With coarse lemon gin

Until I could no longer feel my skin.

I have been frightened

Yes I have felt fear, like a noose around my throat being tightened

Like a gruesome black crow, perched on my shoulder

I have often awoken affright at night,

Longing, praying, for the morning light

I have felt fear, wild, fierce and turbulent fear

More than anyone will everyone will ever know

By men, by life, by myself

Desolate under the sheets, like a forsaken toy

All by myself

I have seen Paris in the rain

Traveled the French countryside by train

I've woken up to New York window views

And seen New Orleans afternoons, filled with heat and blues.

I've swam the Mexican Baja waters, turquoise and clear

With snakes as sharp as spears

I have known humiliation

Causing my cheeks to turn carnation

A spoon, emptying my insides out

Like a gourd

I have loved

I have known the aching pain of a swelled heart

And the way it can tear you apart

I have gushed torrents upon my pillows and sleeves

Tears running down my chin like guilty thieves

From a lit-up house

I have known death, and grief

The meaning of "never"

Whimpering in the school bathroom

And cold, lonely nights

I have seen the works of Van Gogh, Mondrian, and Miro,

Modigliani, Cezanne, and Frida Kahlo

Of Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Magritte, and Picasso

I have wandered through hallways of masterpieces

Holding tight to my grandmother's hand

And I have wept shamelessly for joy

Before Degas's La classe de danse

I have been diagnosed

I have undergone computer programs designed to shift my brain, to better it

To get me to be normal, to submit

I have had brain-altering medicine shoved down my throat,

Like stuffing a goose,

To make my brain run a little less loose

And I have submitted and gotten use to my brain being altered.

I have had kisses that were mere trifles

Frivolous, yet fierce and acute like shots from a rifle

Lips of mere flesh, not sweet godly nectar

And gazes that meant everything

That seemed to connect with an invisible yet indestructible string

Iris like distant galaxies and pupils twinkling like black jewels

Eyes that seemed enkindled by some ethereal fuel

Speaking of emotions far too secluded, cryptic and cluttered

To be worded and uttered

I know the way in which violence resides

Not in commotion, brusqueness, nor physical harm

But in silence

In the time that covers pain and secrets

In the slow impossibility of trust

In the way that some secrets become inconceivable to tell, time has so covered them in rust

In that dull, dismal ache

In all that is doomed to remain forever opaque.

I have read, for pleasure,

The works of Balzac, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, and Voltaire

Of Bobin, Gaude, and Baudelaire

Of Flaubert, Hemingway

and good old Bradbury, Ray

Émile Zola, Primo Levi

Moliere, Rousseau, and Bukowski

I have read, and loved, and understood

I have known insomnia

The way a beach knows the tides

Sleepless nights of convulsive, feverish panic, of clutching my sides,

Of silent hysteria and salty terror.

I know what happens at night, when sweet slumber seems so far away

The worries and woes seem to multiply and swell in hopeless disarray

My lips grow pale, my eye grow sunken

As a time ticks by, tomorrow darkens

I have witnessed horror

In the form of a blue body bag

Being rolled out with a squeaking drag

By two yellow-vested men

With apologetic eyes

That seemed to say "*Oh god

We're so sorry you had to see that

Please, please

Go home

And try to forget*"

But you are right

I am still just a child

Naive, innocent, and pure

I have known nothing dark or obscure

I have not yet lived.

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