Bushy eyebrows arch over
Blue-gray eyes.
They fill with tears.
Bushy brown hair
Sticking out in every direction.
Each strand smells of smoke.
Pale skin riddled with red spots of acne.
A few beauty marks breakthrough,
But not enough to make her beautiful.
She loves the irony in that.
Pale, white scars
Lie hidden on her thighs.
You can only see them when it is summer
And the sun is only shining on her.

She's a master of disguise.
She knows how to be invisible,
How to disappear.
A Houdini in the making.

Her arms are full of books
And pens
And poems
And apologies scrawled out on her wrists
In sloppy handwriting.
She holds her bottom lip
Between her teeth.
Hopes no one can see the bloodstains.

Sometimes she smiles.
Sometimes she walks the dog
Until the heat becomes too much and
She vomits on the sidewalk.
Sometimes she listens to old records in
Her attic while the cat
Claws at the door.
Sometimes she forgets to eat.
Sometimes she just is.

She has a lisp.
People lie and tell her they can't hear it.
She knows.
She used to wear bracelets
But they felt like handcuffs.
She used to wear necklaces
But they felt like nooses.
People love her,
But not in the way she wants to be loved.

She lets grenades explode on her tongue.
She swallows spit like liquor.
Her heart drums too loudly for her liking.
She bites her nails.
They tell her to stop.

She thinks about war.
About bullets falling like rain.
People dropping like flies.
She thinks about bloodshed.
Her heart breaks again.
She is fine china.

Her teeth fall out.
Her hands shake.
She doesn't know how to be okay.
She needs to be reminded
She is real.
Breathing is too hard for her.
The skin on her palms crack.
She doesn't even care.

One time they left her alone.
For two days.
She went insane.
She rocked herself back and forth
On the sun porch.
A locked oven.
She didn't wash her hair.
Didn't sleep.
She took the bus to work
And watched a man lick the window.
She was sick.

She went home.
Slept for 14 hours straight.

He touched her.
She thawed her frozen shield
And he touched her.
She didn't know it at the time.
She kept quiet.
Only talks about on paper.
She saw him the other day,
Felt the acid of his saliva burn holes in her skin.
She couldn't look away.
Her eyes rolled back in her head again.

They say she's dark.
She has stopped being a girl.
Started being a force of nature.
A tornado.
A thunderstorm.
An earthquake.
A volcano bleeding fire.
She is broken,
Held together by tape.
She is tired.
Tired of pretending.
Tired of being nice.
Tired of the silence that fills her skull like a bullets.

She found a spider the other day
And couldn't find the strength
To **** it.