It was my cousin's wedding reception,
And I wore some creamy lacey dress
That had to be approved of by my mother
Before I shoved it in a bulging duffel bag to endure the
Six hours of Dunkin Donuts bathroom stops
And that weird stop-and-go traffic that makes me
Feel like the color green.

As I stood at the brim of the dance floor,
Trying to ignore the half-drunk staggering relatives of mine,
I thought about whether it's
Polite to pry your eight inch
Torture-o-thon heels
From your swollen toes
Before anyone else bothers.

There was a boy on the other end of the disco lights,
A silhouette that I knew to be slightly more muscular than the last time I'd seen it.
Just about my age, or maybe eight months older if you had to ask him,
Which I had about thirteen years earlier
With some sand in the crotch of
My Gymboree bathing suit.

I tried my best not to look over.
The lights mostly blinded me,
But I still wished to glance at him to see how straight his teeth were and how his acne had cleared up
Because of
Neutrogena SkinID Plus
Or something.

I could tell that he was looking at me,
At the too short lacey dress
And my straight teeth
And my peachy skin
And I wanted so badly to peek over.

I wanted him to ask me to dance,
Please oh God ask me to dance.

(Of course he didn't.)
He was a shy kid, even at seventeen.
He didn't say a word to me all night,
Even though we'd gone to the beach together
Since I was in Huggies.

That I'm cute
Beautiful
Pretty

And I tell them that
It's okay that I'm not
Because I know I'm not
But I don't like being lied to

I know I'm not
Because I can't let tears
Drip down my cheeks
As they shimmer in the dim light
Of the movie credits

I sob until
My face is red and damp and puffy
And I'm clinging to your sleeve
And just crying so uncontrollably
That people sitting next to us
In the dark theater
Might glimpse over to see if maybe
I have a reason to cry so hard.

Does shehave cancer?
Is she missing a leg?
Did her crack-addict mother die when she was an infant?
Why is this bratty straight white blonde girl crying while watching Selma/Dallas Buyer's Club/The Help?

I have to brush my hair
Instantly
When I get out of the pool
In the summer
(Hopping from foot to foot of course
Because the sun has baked the concrete)
Because if I don't
It becomes a half-curly knotted mess.

And if I don't braid it directly after that
Then it dries
In resemblance to a Yield Sign
In a somewhat triangular form

And I'm chubby.
Not fat. It would be better if I were fat.
If I were fat then things would be
Proportionalish
But instead I'm just
A 5'2 and 3/4" girl
With DDs that no one wants
Because "***** don't count when you're chubby"
And baby fat that lounges on my stomach
No matter how many kilometers I row.

My fingers are too small for my hands.
My glasses make my eyes look huge.
My lips are forever chapped.
My cheeks are overly red.
My eyes are too dark to be pretty
And I know it.
I know all of it.

I've lived in my body for longer than you have.
So don't lie to me.
Don't tell me that I'm cute
Beautiful
Or god forbid pretty
Because I really
Really
Hate being lied to.

It made me
Sick.

The kind of sick
That books describe
As green,
Ghostly skinned
With red rust noses.

Sick to my stomach
Like when you wake up
At 2:00 AM
And realize that
Something
Is
Not
Right
Before you sprint
Down the hall
To the bathroom
And ***** pizza bagels into the
Pristine marble sink.

It made me sick like
When it gets so bad that
Blowing your nose hurts
Because the extra soft Kleenex
Have scratched your skin raw
Over
And
Over
Again.

It made me sick
When I realized
That it wasn't you that I loved
But the feeling of being loved.

Find an outlet.

It should be
Behind a
Desk
Or
A
Bookcase.

I need
Warmth

I need
Energy

I need
Life

Plug me into the
Wall.

Charge me.

Let me sit there
Long after
My eyes glow
Full
And
Powerful

Let me
Sit there
When I
Might
Explode.

Plug me into
The
Wall

Save me

I don't want to die.

Don't be
A mole.

I hate moles.

They burrow
And
Scavenge
And
Live in the
Dark.

Thats just
What you did
To my heart.

You burrowed
Deep,
Down to the center.

You set up camp.
And I didn't know
You were a mole.
I thought maybe you were
A
Straw,
To ****
Bad things
Out.
So I kept you warm
And waited calmly for the
Bad stuff to
Dissapear.

But I realized
That
You were a
Magnifying glass,
To emphasise
My flaws

And you were
A
Seam-ripper
To
Pull the patches
From where
I had already healed,
To make the scabs
Bleed
Again.

And I thought you were
A
Jigsaw
And you were broken
So I could fix you
And put you
Together.

Like a
Vase,
Easily
B
r
o
k
e
n.

And
Then
You left me.

Like a
Tooth
Full of
Cav it ies.

That
Space
Next
To
My heart

No longer full.
And you
Didn't depend on me,
No longer a tapeworm.

I miss you.
Like
You
Were
Mine.

But you were
Never
Mine.

I thought you liked me
As a friend
And nothing more
Which killed me.

But I liked you
As so much more.
As more than a friend.
As that guy
Who would tie my shoes
And open my doors
And kiss my forehead.

As that guy who
Texts first in the morning
And last at night.

I loved you.

And now I know,
You will open my doors
And tie my shoes
And kiss my forehead.

And text me all day,
Not just in the morning
Or night.

Because you don't like me as a friend.
You like me as so much more.

And that gives me life.

I think
I'm finally
In a place
Where being so sore
That walking up
A flight of
Thirteen stairs
Makes my legs burn
Feels good to me.

They say I'm getting stronger.
I think they're right.

When we were little
They used to call them
Spotted
Orange
Lizards.

I think they were trying not to scare us with
The words
Standards
Of
Learning.

Standardized testing.

Those things that you need Number Two pencils for.

Those things that they prepare you for
Every year
For months.

Those things that if a cell phone goes off
The entire class comes back
During the summer
And retakes it.

Those things that they give you hours and hours
To take,
Out of our normal schedule,
Even though they only take
Forty-five minutes

Those things that don't even count
Towards our grades
Because
"They're really assessing the teachers--
But it's important to do your best."

SOLs.
Those things that people stress over.

Even though your answers
Are only
Tiny gray dots
On a
Scantron sheet.

I sent it
At three AM
On one of those nights
Where silence gets violent
And I'm alone in my head.

I told you about the
Tiny pink pills
And how
If I took eight
I would sleep forever.
I gushed that
They were hidden
Under the toothpaste slathered
Countertop
In my bathroom.

I told you I loved you
But that
You weren't enough to stop me anymore.

I did actually consider it.
It was one of those nights.
But at some point,
As I laid on top of my comforter
And shivered under the fan,
I realized that
You weren't going to wake up
And convince me out of it.

I also thought
About how my mom was
A light sleeper.
How the floorboards would sound like
Orchestras
And the cabinet
Would be the symbals
To her.

I fell asleep
Numb,
But naturally numb,
And woke up wondering
What you would say.

You didn't say anything.

He touches
My hair
All the time,
Plays with the
Edges and
Fragments,
And sometimes reminds me that
"I can braid,
You know."
Sometimes he does.

Sometimes he mimics me
In History class
From across the room,
And he laughs at all my jokes,
Even when they aren't funny,
Just
Stupid.

And occasionally,
When I'm sitting in my little niche
Between his desk
And Ellie's,
Right on the cold tile,
He'll attach his forehead to mine
And just look at me.
Sometimes he'll whisper,
"Nose,"
And point to it,
And I just giggle
And break the stare.

I don't even think he feels it,
The wishing to always be near him,
To have his fingers in my hair
All the time,
And for his laugh to be
My soundtrack.

I don't think
That when he stares into my eyes
He wants to kiss me
As bad
As I want
To kiss
Him.