Today I saw a girl
She was walking
On a residential street
She looked out of place
But I knew her face
It’s a small town
So, of course, I knew her face
Of course, I know her name
She’s the Jones girl

She’s a teenager
I don’t know what she was doing
Probably doing whatever it is
Teenagers do
On a Sunday afternoon
In a small town

Platinum white hair
Piercings up her ear
Future up in the air
Scene and emo wristbands
And a graphic tee
Probably not from Hot Topic
Because Hot Topic ain’t so hot here

Here’s the thing
She’d be the It Girl
If it weren’t for her acne
If it weren’t for her height
If it weren’t for her weight
If it weren’t for her interests
If it weren’t for her hobbies
If it weren’t for everything about her
But her name
And her age

She deserves better
I don’t like her
Not personally
But she does deserve better
She deserves the city streets
There, and only there,
Can she can be who she wants to be

And if she can’t?
Then there’s no place I want to be
Not one at all
Because I want to be
Where she,
Where we all can be,
Who we want to be

she ripped a hole in her socks every day, maybe just to feel the thorns and let her legs bleed / that kind of lovelyblindingfrightening thing that you want to run your fingers through, tug on her hair just to feel the resistance / you ask her what it means to be a constructed girl and she says ‘convict yourself of ****** and you’re halfway there’ / in the dirt, tearing out flowers like a lonely god in the universe - she’s bruised, and soft and waiting

i'm getting ahead of myself and i feel nostalgic about everything already. i swear i was just thirteen yesterday. then i fell in love and i broke my own heart and fell in love again, got caught in the end. all of it just yesterday. some of it just feels like a dream.

and i woke up like this, almost eighteen. with a belly full of worries, a heart tripping on hope, and ribcage heaving with sighs. but still we persist. no matter that i hold my head in my hands or hide behind my hair a lot of the time. no matter that i am becoming afraid to speak. no matter that i think i want to cry all the time. and i don't even try to tell anyone anymore.

but just yesterday i was a kid and i'd never truly known what afraid meant. i never used the words heavy, burden, weight. now they're always on the tip of my tongue when i taste the air and try to gauge how i'm feeling. i open my clenched fists and think, pain.

what did i do? what changed yesterday? i remember at one point i learned to take a blade to my skin. at one point i learned to change my face. i learned to stop eating. i remember making so many promises. that if lord would grant me this, i would be glad. that's it, i would say. i would not ask for more. i would not need anything else. i think maybe i never needed more in the first place.

what have i done? if i could go back, what would it take to save myself? did i ask for the wrong things? had i worded my prayers differently, would i be someone else? what is this story? could i be doomed before i even begin? i don't miss who i was yesterday.  yesterday, she wanted to be who i am today. i don't like who i am today. i don't know if that will change when i wake up tomorrow, or in a few years.

maybe everything will be much the same but i won't know my heart again. i'll be wondering what was on my mind then. and it's just this: i am scared, cold, alone, and sorry for the choices i have made which led us to this place. i think i am weaker now than i have ever been, and it makes me ashamed.

in the basement our crevices become maps
we point to the tender parts

tired eyes. sore limbs. worried head. bitten lips. broken nails. aching heart.

At night my emotions sit on top of me
like bricks
The monster in my head reads a bedtime story about
A fat girl who does not eat.
It is a tragedy disguised as a triumphant heroine’s quest,
read in the voice of my mother.
I do not remember what the girl is looking for,
but she keeps going, keeps digging her nails into the Earth,
searching for the promises that her monster makes.
She finds bits of debris that she cannot name
and fungus and grains
of sand that cut like sea-glass.
The monster sighs,
“Just keep digging and you will find victory,
happiness, safety, and love.”
The girl becomes confused
and falls into the dug-up ground like a limp fish,
she cannot breathe underground,
and she ***** dirt like air.

In swimsuits which means
essentially naked
the girls gather at the bridge
gasping giggling
budding bodies bouncing
as they climb over the steel rail
stand at the outside edge
hold hands
scream

and jump
the scary plunge
to cool water, Donner Creek where
toe-touching the sandy bottom
they burst upward through bubbles
to sunlight, to air
whipping hair
with laughter, relief,
stronger now,
sweet courage
with a touch of spice.

Frog-kicking to shore
they smile
at the baggy-legged boys
who dared them
standing hands in pockets
smaller now
feigning indifference
unworthy of their loveliness.

my reflection, anatomical inaccuracy reads something like:

fairy dust in a silt layer, bones all shattered at the press of her fingers, and for months I molded a sandcastle around the soft

sinking, drinking ichor from a cocktail glass and dragging nails across my discomfort -

did you see that girl taking a tempest inside herself, to warp her sinew, spreading from this side of the universe to other?

in the lamplight I bit a secret onto the ridge of her spine; *sometimes I sleep near fires hoping my insides become glass

what if in the night i let my girl-heart out
its muffled murmurs, its soft
unfolding sounds;
let it go completely

would i almost learn how to settle in life
learn to unbloom the bruises
on skin too tight
to remove completely

would i lose colour and find it among flowers
would i lose colour at all