It's fourth grade recess,
I'm standing behind the white chalk lines
drawn onto the asphalt,
watching other kids win.

Some nameless ten-year-old
with curly red hair and shiny black shoes
is telling me about blood—
If it never touches the air
it is blue as the ocean.
I've never seen an ocean
and I believe him anyway.

Years pass,
and I'm still standing
behind someone else’s chalk lines.
I've long since passed biology
graduated from fairy tales,
though sometimes,
late at night
I still imagine blue blood
pumping in my arms,
curling lazily under my fingertips.
I've seen the ocean now
and I know better than to believe anything.

It's years later,
and I'm drawing my own chalk lines
across the mirror over the sink,
staring into myself.
I know better, I do,
but I imagine that my blue eyes
are filled up with blue blood.
If I cry hard enough,
I will stain my cheeks with cobalt
and the chalk will crumble against my face,
leaving stars burnt out and lost
in the sea of blue.

And the whole world will know
that I've seen the ocean,
the whole world will understand
that I bled myself dry.