I was a god once,
but I got bored
and turned myself into a girl
just to see what it felt like
to bleed on a schedule
and be underestimated at CVS.

I used to throw comets for fun.
Now I throw up from anxiety
and pretend it’s acid reflux.

I traded omniscience for online shopping.
Traded lightning bolts
for a Bic lighter
I keep losing in other people’s cars.

I used to be prayed to.
Now I pray I don’t get ghosted,
pray my Amazon Chase card wasn’t hacked,
pray I remember why I walked into the room.

I’ve lived for centuries.
You can tell by the way
I roll my eyes at time.

My bones know Latin.
My knees speak Morse.
My spine hums with prophecies
I keep forgetting to write down.

I was a god once.
But now I’m just really good at parties.
Really bad at sleeping.

Really into ChatGPT conversations
and spending 40 minutes at a time
inside my ear canal
with an inner-ear camera from Shein.

II watch body-cam arrest videos at 3AM
and wonder if I’d beg prettier on camera.
Sometimes everything that comes out of me
smells burnt.

I think I’d make a good Saint,
so I keep my eyes open for miracles—
but I only feel fire in my bones
when I’m overstimulated.
And I feel really sleepy the rest of the time.

I still have revelations,
but they only happen when I’m doom-scrolling.
I still search for splendors,
I just call them coping mechanisms now.

I make eye contact with hawks.
I smell rain before it happens.
I know who’s going to text me
before they do.
Then they don’t.

Sometimes I float—
but only in conversations.

I leave my body at least once a day.
Usually in traffic.
Sometimes while folding laundry.
Always when someone says,
“You don’t seem like the type to cry.”

I was a god once.
And now I’m this.
A walking myth in leggings.
A fallen star with a Dollar Tree receipt so long
it reads like scripture.

Don’t worship me.
Just don’t interrupt me
when I’m talking to the moon.

I brush my teeth like I’m getting ready for war.
Or I forget to for three days
until my canines are wearing sweaters.

Temu moisturizer like battle paint.
Who knows what’s in there.
Who cares.

Upside-down Claddagh on my ring finger like a threat.
And it might be.

I put my hair up like a woman with secrets—
on the days I brush it.
A bumpy bun the rest of the time.

I shed like a stripper.
I strip like a thief.

I walk out the garage door like I invented sorrow.
I get in my car
like every song from Reputation to Tortured Poets
was written for me.

I wave to strangers like I’m about to die.
Cross the street like it’s a choice.
Clock into work like I have a hit on my head.

I **** Elf Bars like they’ve got confessions inside,
and blow out like they won’t give me cancer—
because they can tell
I approach them with pure intentions
and a positive spirit.

I know how to make an exit
that feels like a funeral.
I know how to hold a coffee cup
like I’m accepting an award
no one else can see.

I take bites of dropped chocolate chip cookies
but spit them out before they ruin me.

I spend too long staring at my own reflection,
just to make sure I still exist.

I catalog new moles.
Curse the milia above my eyelids.
Buzz off my mustache.
Denounce my chin hairs.
I think thin.

Sometimes I blink
just to feel time move.

I keep novels in my bag like armor,
and a journal like a last will and testament.

The expensive pens from Amazon
that don’t crawl up my left hand
like a disease.
That don’t smudge the page
like I have something to hide.

I pay for Spotify.
Skip the songs that hurt.
Play the one that ruins me.

I cry on the train
like I’m filming something important.
Because I will be.

I want everything I feel
to mean something.
I want every single ache to echo.
I want my poems
reverberating in the minds of people
who are emotionally legendary.

I want the world to apologize
for not feeling it first.

Sometimes I walk
like I’m being watched
by everyone who’s ever left me.

Sometimes I smile
like I know something God doesn’t.

Sometimes I think I was born
just to document
what it means to be alive
in the most dramatic possible way.

Because I am the first girl
to ever feel anything.