My mother forgot to put a varnish on me / when she made me / I can imagine how vivid I’d be / if way back when I was eight / I’d noticed that sepias weren’t the right colors / on a child’s mind //

Now I’m slamming into sixteen / the way an addict is supposed to hit a wall / no longer sliding into the high / but scratching at the furthest point / sometimes the sadness has nowhere to go / and it just ripples along each nerve / from the inside out //

Like today / I sat for five hours for an exam / to qualify for things I don’t want to do / in support of institutions that make me sick / and the only movement was my pencil / the rest of my blood stopped flowing / and I got so cold / like today I sat with something in my throat / and just my arms shaking / while my mother told me about  boy strung up on barb wire fencing //

But both of those things still pull at the bone on my back / where wings could be / where I could have found happiness if I’d just tried / the way a body feels with the absence of heat / ******* out all the good things / I know lay under those clothes / and the way //

I count quarters every night / and sweat at the laundromat / I wish these things could be solved by just feeling about them / have you ever pushed your emotions because you knew you weren’t feeling them hard enough / so you asked your throat to constrict a little more / the fuzz of your tense shoulders to ride your skin a little more / it’s like if I pay attention to myself I can think with less clarity / and maybe if I push with my thumb on all the things that make me tick / I won’t tick anymore //