I grin my stupid grin, noting the green flecks and the hard to get at strands of meat, relishing the deep booth, the just loud enough too loud music, the familiar smile dishing out the platters, the laughter of being the first to the shake and squeeze of the red not quite ketchup between my hands, the almost fit of the dripping burger in my mouth, leaving a lick of a stain on my lower lip and a longer lasting comfort blanket layered in my stomach from that meal and a half, once in a while treat of my family, sandwiched together and perfectly reflected in the wall mirror.

"Regular Sized Rudy?
Why do they call you that?"
"Just look at me."

Yes, look at me. Are
the laces of my corset
tied tight enough?

Do I deserve lust
if ******* show
in this underbust?

Is my masculinity
compliant and
where it needs to be?

A man and wife go to lunch.
Premium burgers, shakes and fries.
It's cheap and he can wear his sweatpants.
For every one couple,
there's twenty single fathers
with his children.
(a depressing ratio)
It must be custody weekend.
At the Heartbreak Hotel
tables for two occupy singles.
The men picked out their best shirts
and the women painted their lips.
Looking only for a conversation,
they leave with a bill
priced with another Sunday
of shattered hope.

I don’t tell them I’m going to a protest,
as I know they will not say no, it really
is far safer.
The police have been pretty fair, only a couple
of ******* arrests and cause white privilege
I probably won’t get arrested.
In a black and white democracy color is prohibited.
I never have been close in a protest yet, the police always tolerant
maybe the commissioner doesn’t ****.
I don’t boast to them about starting a chapter in my
school.
I don’t them that the chapter I started with them was finished hundreds
of pages ago.

I don’t tell them I cut class to protest the B.S minimum wage
how I ****** the very thing I’m trying to start cause 
I was in a pissy mood.

I don’t them about how my friend and I were okay
with paying a guy trying to sell us **** to buy
us alcohol, later losing 20$
and not okay with going into a tattoo shop for the same purpose.
I don’t tell them about wandering around Chinatown
feeling like we should be drunk.

About the girl who in eighth grade asked me to touch
her *****, and I don’t tell them how
two years later we start hanging out— over facebook.
She moved to London.
About how she will be in the city the day my family goes away,
about trading facebooks for fifteen minutes
and having weird *** crap on my Facebook
and talk of how Jesus is an improper child on hers.

Nor do I my parents about meeting up with a
girl who I meet a month ago at a pillow fight,
and how right they were when they said ******
tables manners will catch up to you,
about how leaving a protest cause "my parents
are ******" and later seeing those people at the burger place.
I tell my parents I’m chilling with my buddies.
I tell them that I got pizza instead of burgers.
Because friends are safer to parents than a nineteen year
old girl you met at a pillow fight and how the entire time you
could not tell if it was friends meeting up or
people who wanted more.

I don’t tell them the reason why I’m so ******* fragile
is that I can’t tell if I’m manipulating myself or being real,
or how I’m the only one who is hurting me,
for fear of saying what I just told you.

Now all of this ******* **** lives in me and I have
nobody to proofread this.
Lovely.