today, i wake up wearing an old band t-shirt and i’m sixteen again / pulling jumper sleeves over my palms / keeping my eyes on my feet / earphones in / willing myself invisible / refusing to step out of changing rooms in anything that clings to my skin / flinching from mirrors and cameras / nobody wants to stay too long at the beginning of a cinderella story / before the lenses and makeup and hair-flipping confidence / before the boys who call you a frigid ***** for expressing an opinion start to slide into your DMs / saying “hey, you seem cool, i’d love to hear you talk about feminism.” / but they’d love get you drunk first / love to get funny girl / cool girl / beer-pong and dancing on tables and witty comebacks / always-slipping-out-of-your-hands / let’s-tame-this-shrew-wild-girl / like yeah give this girl a stage but stop her if she makes you uncomfortable / we like a damsel-in-distress, big-blinking-eyes-trophy-wife / not the girl who stood in between her best friend and the ones who mocked her for her body / not the girl with bloodied lips instead of red lipstick / grinning, saying, “you’re going to have to go through me.” / nobody likes an ugly girl with a mouth full of words / so you learn to swallow them / be prettier, shinier, smoother / show them a piece of glass instead of dagger / lie in wait to turn the tables because you still remember / what it’s like to be sixteen and forced to look at your body as a liability / what it’s like to be sixteen and told your anger is embarrassing / just another teenage phase

I Broke English
I’m trying to get better at it,
I swear I am.
I’m trying to reach my full potential,
But right now I have a fool’s potential.
It’s the only abstract thing you can break
Besides love.
And that is—
English.
My parents have broken English.
But did they have to pay for it?
Is English a vase with a price tag?
I thought that was called China for a reason?
Was English a mishandled shipment
With the label “fragile” on it?
Is English a person whose feelings have been hurt?
I thought that’s why there are therapists for him or her?

Anyways, my mom once asked me,
“How come read and read look the same?
But read and red sound the same?”
And my dad asked,
“Why is it pronounced lie-in,
Instead of lie-on?”
I always hear the saying, “I put the emphasis on the wrong syllable,”
But really, who here determines such things?

I always hear the question “Can I use the bathroom?”
Only to be hit back with “I don’t know, can you?”
Well, guess what.
May I tell you a secret?
I don’t really care, I just need to use it.

Heck, we need math to solve English.
Do we derive the root from the word?
And finally get an origin?
This plays an integral part
In our English.

People use it around the world!
Instead of hearing Bonjour! Or Hola!
We get
Hey! Hello! What’s up!
Because French isn’t universal
We don’t get to hear
“Je ne parle pas en francais”
And same for Spanish
We don’t hear
“Yo no hablo espanol”
But instead, we hear around the world
“I don’t speak very good English”
I speak
Broken
English.

Much like my broken brain
I can’t piece it together
How this dang jigsaw puzzle
Works altogether.

It’s difficult to speak in these words
Without tripping up.
Trust me it was hard to memorize,
I swear, I was all caught up
In the moment of knowing these letters.
But I didn’t take into account
The meaning of grammar—
It’s a nail that’s hard to hammer
The meaning of pronunciation—
I don’t know, can you hear my enunciation
The meaning of punctuation—
Maybe I can put an exclamation?
Or make it a question!

I finally figured out what English is.
It’s a law that I’ve broken several times
But can get away with it
Because I was born with the proper accent and the language.

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

Instead, you play the part fully
As the intellectual bully
Disregarding the tears
Throwing misspelled word spears
Wielding grammar hammers
Pouncing when someone stammers
Hey, Bro! Don't you even know
What time it is?

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

You say you're a godly player
But you're really a Sibboleth slayer,
An ill will conveyor,
Grand total naysayer,
Once you went away but then came back
Unbelievable, you're even more whack!
Hey, Bro! Don't you really know
What time it is?

Time to stop judging
Best to confess
Hiding behind your SOS
Feelings of others you ignore
Drama and chaos you adore
With your moralistic writes
Acerbic word fights
Sarcastic bites...
Why can't you be nice?

TONEY OUT - BOOM!

I miss my dentist.
I miss the smell of disinfectant in his office,
The sound of the water pick
The taste of his latex gloves in my mouth.
I miss the one-sided conversations about the philosophies of life.
I miss hearing about how his wife and his kids are doing.
The gossip about Roxanne’s new boyfriend or the new shipment of fluoride that just came in.
I miss the sound of the secretary's keyboard as she types up the report stating that
I am cavity free.
I miss him telling me how healthy and beautiful my smile is.
I miss him thoughtfully listening to my life complaints as he examines my x-rays.
I miss his advice, the wise counsel he’d give regarding my schooling or love life and the way he’d wink when he says I’m good for another six months.
But those six months couldn’t come fast enough.
Jenny broke up with her ex for the 4th time, Paul quit his job before a drug test, Sherry dropped out of college, my roommate is pregnant, Dad bought a pet kangaroo, my apartment is infested with small beetel things, I’ve only eaten ramen for the past 3 days and Cason proposed to me.
I don’t know how to handle it all.
I miss my therapist.
I mean my dentist.