She wanted to travel
Unravel the world
Like famous explorers
Who's wandering was all the will to ask
If there was anything beyond the horizon
That they could see.

Now shes everywhere -

Frozen stare, pigtails and grey red uniform,
Tie needling south with the straightness of a compass
And shes lost.

Where is she?
Everywhere anyone turns
Trapped in the undergrowth
Where cans and cat **** go to pasture
Her wrinkled smile
Is caked onto the branches
Paper machet - ed and as brittle
As an old map.
She breaks apart like bread crumbs
That will never lead her home.

Have you seen her?
Not tumble weeding her news
Across the m2
Or pinned to a lamppost
Weeping her ink into the missing
like a watercolour.

Have you spied her?
Not tied with weak ribbon
to brown stalks who's little
Notes speak of hope
And other things, like Angel's and innocence,
The innocence shes frozen in.

Can you find her?
Not hopefully
Flying her flag of the forgotten
On the tv
Budget crew
Remaking her last seen
With shaking cameras
And discount queens of the smaller screen
Hoping for Hollywood.

Is there a tangible
Left to her name
Thrown as it has been across
State lines, and small places
That only the locals know.
She has Columbus - ed the globe
And she only left home
Walked down her drive
And disappeared.

How am I supposed to react
When inside my own body
I feel so trapped

I'm expected to be what I present
But that doesn't reflect me
And this person you see, I've began to resent

Her pronouns don't feel like mine
And they haven't for a while
But changing them has helped over time

Sometimes it feels okay
Others I can't take it
Because how I feel changes day to day

The girl you see who wears the skirts
Who wears makeup to be confident
Isn't a girl at all, and feels like dirt

When you call me beautiful
I don't know how to feel
It feels so unusual

My body doesn't feel like mine
It belongs to a woman
If it didn't maybe I'd feel fine

My clothes don't reflect me
Neither does my makeup
This isn't who I want to be

I'm scared I'll never look neutral
Maybe you'll always see a girl
It just feels so brutal

The person you raised
Isn't who I grew into
I'm a new person today

I've never came out
But it's because I'm still so unsure
And if I told you you'd feel doubt

You raised a girl
Not someone doesn't feel right
A child who'd grow to wear dresses and pearls

I was always your princess
Never your prince or neither
But I've never felt secure in a dress

I'll never feel feminine
Not how you perceive it
But how I feel it is relevant

The tiara never fit my head quite right
And the long hair felt wrong
I wish I could change overnight

One day you'll know
I'll explain it all to you
But until then, I'll continue to grow

Two eyes in the mirror, looking back at me,
Forcing me to peer beyond what the eyes refuses to see.

Begging me to acknowledge what I’ve tried so hard to hide,
So it’s times to be brave and address the little girl inside.

It’s okay to be afraid, I know what you’re going through,
You don’t have to feel alone, I’ll take this journey with you.

I’m sorry for all the neglected cries you have tried to express,
I’m sorry for all the times I’ve ignored you, thinking that I know what’s best.

Forgive me for all the times when I’ve avoided you,
It’s just that acknowledging you is something I’ve tried hard not to do.

Forgive me for all the times I’ve refused to hold your hand,
I’m sorry for all the times I’ve left you sinking in quick sand.

You deserve to be loved and yet I just left you alone,
Please forgive me for abandoning you to survive on your own.

Forgive me for not showing you how to demand what you are worth,
I should have taught you about your value, you’ve been a queen since birth.

The little girl’s arm was just long enough to touch the top of the lake. She lay at the end of the pier on her stomach, with one arm and her head floating over the edge. Both feet kicked the air in a steady rhythm. She tapped that same rhythm onto the water, one finger at a time.

thumb-index-middle-ring
pinky-ring-middle-index
thumb-inde­x-middle-ring
pinky-ring-middle-index

The Payne’s gray sky cast a languor over her town, and soon she would be called back inside.

Why was this Friday afternoon so boring?

Within the dark drum in front of her, she saw a glowing fish radiating an orange luminescence. She beamed a smile and waved at the tiny creature.

It swam away. She pouted a tut, but bowed her frown, aware of the wistful fated nature of all things.

She stood up to leave, but before turning she spotted the fish again, in its mighty illumination. She smiled and waved, and as she did the entire lake lit up in a cauldron of flaming fish. They swam around, an oil painting alive right before her eyes. Her hands came up to her wowed cheeks as she laughed with euphoric glee.

And as soon as it had come it went, and only the one gleaming fish remained.

The little girl said thanks, and the fish departed.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow

Here is a little girl
With dark lashes
And eight-looped braids
Her limbs as
Thin and white as bone
She’s shivering in the cold
Of her thoughts a
surging, raging ocean, a dark horse.
Her face downturned violently,
As if she had no neck,
She swings with the breeze of
A thousand cold breaths
Her breast cold, as if
She hadn’t any heartbeat.

Here hangs a little girl
The subject of damnation by
A hundred harsh thoughts,
A thousand cold shoulders,
And the godless hell in which she resided.

Every time I attempt to sit down with my mom and talk about my mental state
She somehow warps the story into the idea that I am simply stressed out because I am not trying hard enough in school
And I sit there and take her words
Shoving them down my throat in an attempt to make them fact
But they do not fit the gaping hole in my chest
Her words are mismatched puzzle pieces trying to portray two different pictures
But she’s not wrong
School is one of the causes of my anxiety but not in the way she thinks it is
I walk into school every day
a new lollipop flavor in my mouth
Hands shoved into pants pockets
A false swagger used as a shield
So they don’t know that I cried myself to sleep last night
I have created the perfect girl
She walks into the room
Smile bold and blazing like the summer sun
A new joke slips past her lips
Causing her classmates to hunch over in stitches
And in those seconds she wipes the remaining tears from when she cried because she looked in the mirror for too long
The girl I come to school as
Has a heart of gold
And her arms wide open to embrace everyone she sees
She holds them close to her chest so they don’t see her cry
She walks into a room
Bold and brash and brazen
Shouting
Look at me I am a star
Look at me I am shining
Why don’t you see me shining?
Notice me
Notice my happiness
Notice my confidence
Notice my high self-worth
I shout and I shout and I shout
All so they won’t notice the cracks and creases on my exterior
This girl that I am from the moment she steps into the building
Until the moment she touches down on her bed
Walks like the world is her runway
Flashes her painted on smile like it's her ticket to happiness
Her skin is stitched together by quirky comments
Corny jokes
And faux vibrato that reverberates in her chest so she can shout my words out to the room as if she is the Queen of the world
The fictional heroine I composed
A character I have created because no one wants to be friends with the girl who dreams of killing herself
No one wants to be friends with the girl who shoves her fist in her mouth at 2:00 in the morning
Hoping to choke down her sobs so she would not bother anyone
No one wants to friends with the other part of me
The one who puts the lollipop in her mouth to block the screams from ripping out her throat
To cease the quivering of her voice
The one who twirls the stick in her fingers so you won’t notice the violent shaking of her hands as she looks for something to hold onto
Something to control
Something to rip
Something to shred
To hopefully not tear out her hairs and huddle into a ball in the corner of the classroom
So she keeps ******* on that stick of comfort
To steady her nerves
To not cry out
Help Me
For this is not their problem
Not their baggage to drag behind them
Her shoulders have become pedestals for her pain
Because it is hers alone to carry
They do not need to see it
I have come to the conclusion that I am a pathological liar
a body snatcher who transforms into the person she dreams of being every ******* day
and you may call this identity theft because she’s not truly me
The little girl that I truly am deep down inside is still afraid of the dark
Still scared of heights
Still petrified of clowns
But she’s even more horrified by the thoughts that run around in her own mind
She’d rather face a thousand killer clowns on the top of Mount Everest in the middle of the night
Than sit alone with her thoughts in her hands
Weeping out the story of a girl who’d rather die than keep breathing half of the time
Tears clog my eyes and blur my vision
I can feel the oxygen slipping out of my lungs
I can feel the heat pool in my chest
I can feel them start to shrivel
Hyperventilation occurs
As I begin to heave my chest outwards hoping to fill this void
I can’t breath
I can’t breath
I can’t breath
I can’t-
I grab a lollipop out of my bag
Fingers quivering like fall leaves
I Rip off the wrapper and throw it into the trash
Just as if it was the little girl
I place its perfect pink roundness between my lips and hold it there
I inhale
I exhale
And I feel the smirk plaster itself onto my face
I sense my eyes flicking to a lighter color
I sit back down at my desk
Twiddle my thumbs
Insert a sly comment into the conversation
And they laugh
They laugh so loud that they don’t hear the cracking of my heart
The little girl is sleeping now
And I foolishly hope
She won’t wake up
Ever
Again