I am as hard as a diamond,
my edges are cut sharp into cubical quartz.
I harden and I process; you can strike me against a rock
and I will not shatter.
I don't shine like a diamond, I'm as dull as an old razor blade;
the remnants of sharpness are there
but who wants to shave with an old razor blade.

My dandelion hair flows with the breeze,
and the salty sweat from my head
makes the fragrance drift
like tentacles into the air.

I sit in corners and sift my brain,
searching for gold that is not there,
but constantly thinking and thinking and thinking;
I go crazy and turn into liquid,
I am the ocean turning and the high tide crashing into the shore.
I drift until I'm calm,
until I'm a rainbow fish in the sea,
swimming under sail boats and sea gulls
and wrinkled fishermen upset with their love lives.

My hands are question marks,
punctuation that I cannot answer, I cannot understand.
My toes curl and I cringe as I remember who I am,
the person that cannot be saved
or brought in with a lasso around my neck.

I am a half-finished metaphor and your deja vu,
you must be a sorcerer if you can make me love
like the old-fashioned movie screen.
My voice is raspy from the attempts at screaming my own name
in order to hear something,
to feel something in this empty cavity of a body.

I will dye my hair aquamarine and magenta
and all the colors with the fancy names,
before I make up my mind to understand anyone else.
I will fold myself in like a thousand paper cranes,
and paper cranes do not fly.
I will write on the walls of my insides that I do not need anyone,
until my brain memorizes my own handwriting.

*(a.m.c.)