I write a lot of love poems
Even though I have never been in love.

This is the irony I brush my teeth with.

I bruise easily.
This is seen and treated as a curse.
They think I am an anemic girl.
They think there is something wrong
With my inner chemistry.
They have thought that since I was six years old
And refused to read.
Now I bury myself in books
And poetry that tastes like dirt.

Winter was made for people like me.
People who feel
Personally victimized by the sun
And can’t breathe
In the still, stale heat of July
I always seem to swallow
Ice cubes the wrong way.

I love so fiercely,
So fast.
My love can ignite candles
And start brushfires.
My love can fill oceans,
Lunar craters,
And you.
I spend my love
Like a first paycheck from a first job.
I love recklessly.
I love openly.
I have not had a real boyfriend
Since the 8th grade.

I complain and complain
And complain.
I hate people who complain.

I only open my wrists metaphorically
Yet these scars
Stand at attention like
Soldiers whose minds are still at war.

I think my fingers are bleeding
But there is no way to know for sure.
I am blind
But like Oedipus I have sight.

I brush my teeth with irony
Because its the only thing that has
Ever been able to polish
Any part of me.
I brush my teeth with irony
Because without this irony
I am just another girl
Who can’t breathe without assistance.
Who can’t feel without being told what feeling feels like.
Who can write sonnets
But doesn’t know what the **** Shakespeare is talking about.

And this,
This is the irony I brush my teeth with.