anthems for a seventeen-year-old girl include:
a bizarre love triangle, delicate hands, and home

bizarre love triangle is something
not taught in geometry
it is scalene, and it is uneven
for the shorter leg is the devil's arithmetic
and the longer, the perfect equation
the common side touches both in
different ways, for different reasons
shorter swells with jealousy as
longer and longer yet meet at their divine point
practicality destroys the art made, year last
a loss, a jilt, weathering sides so relentlessly
distanced from what devours ideals,
both isolated lines in cosmic space
each prayer inches them closer together
though it is bizarre, it is also beautiful

-c.j.