No one ever told me I was nothing,

but they sure tried to sing it and write it in trees
and the dirt with their sticks and stones and my own bones
and when the words didn't hit home they used  my. body.
and. my. hair.  and wrapped each sinew of my muscle in
knots and buried me beneath sixteen inches of myself
until I could no longer hear my own screams just a
faint whisper of a melody, tell me--how do you
help yourself when you can't even hear
your own pleas?



Nobody ever said I wasn't enough, but their questions
suffused me out, and each action undid a button (or a blouse)
took out these flimsy plaster walls and flooded the gates with
sordid tastes and feelings I never knew I had, broke off parts
of me like grapes and popped me from the stems to put on
plates, and you might even say they ate
me.

in fact there be people saying I'm **** perfect, talkin' about how
there's something different 'bout me and the way I approach things
like they ain't ever seen caution, how I'm the best thing that could have
happened to them but that's all dry corn stalk and maybe it's just my fault for trying--in a completely non-piteous sort of way, maybe I spent
too much time hoping or putting faith in dime slots instead of dimes--

I've come around to notice none of my habits are inherently me, that music is just a page out of a how-to pamphlet on Being Liked and Staying That Way, how to buy boots and hope material possessions make it better, how to search out a crowd and ruin Wednesdays for yourself, the 10-minute sequence on Staring Out Windows on the 25th Brick and how No One Even Looks Attractive after kissing him.

No one ever told me I was nothing, and I never thought I was, because I am not no thing at all or not one bit--A conglomeration of others
certainly does exist, but who are they, who am i, and where do I
come in?