i used to think i was the bravest girl in the world, the one
who was going to reach her arms out to grasp sunbeams
and absorb hurt like inverse constellations into her skin.
i'd go up to doctors and dare them to stick me with their needles
and diagnoses, taunt coaches to push me harder in practices,
shed tears like fallen leaves to humor myself on occasion.
i was a tiger shark, alone and comfortable in my shadow, but
knowing that any pause could stop the water from becoming
air in my lungs; i'd kiss and sometimes i swear i tasted blood.
but now i know friends who have lost things in darkness that
they can never reclaim, no matter what lights they turn on,
and nineteen seems closer to both everything and nothing.
now i love like someone who is more afraid of drowning
in her own cup of water than the ocean, even though the
waves have never been anything less than welcoming.
i've seen talent and courage drain into a needle and bottle,
a hoodie and dark skin become the uniform of suspicion,
a country of the free bleed onto its own striped flag.
listen, it's forgotten the words to its own national anthem.
so then where, in the mix of war paint and firewood,
is there a place for the fierce but not fearless,
the ones who want nothing but need everything, and
who are still sometimes afraid of their own voices?