Question: What do you do if your car crashes?
Answer: Don't crash your car.

I drove myself home from the hospital the morning after I drove myself insane.
A note in my hand listing ways the doctors could direct to get me home safe from my own self.
Come to a full stop at sharp edges,
Steer away from liquids you can drown in,
Put in your caution lights so people just drive around you,
Take your medicine,
Don't drive alone,
No not that medicine
Here's a phone number in case you have something worth saying,
Bus to class,
Unless that's too hard.
Flunk out
Call your mother.
Don't tell her everything.
And it becomes a challenge just to say I'm not okay.

Because after a disaster like mine,
No one wants to hear you haven't healed yet.

And I can't count the number of times I've been offered a vaccine instead of a remedy,
and scoffed at when the cast comes off and I'm still a little too broken.
As if I haven't healed fast enough.

Don't tell me I'm being overdramatic,
Don't tell me I chose the broken glass,
the bending steal.
That it was all avoidable had I just not blinked,
Had I just slowed down and stopped to think
Had I just snapped out of it.

I wouldn't have crashed.

Question: Have you ever gone driving in the rain?
In the snow?
Cause then you might know how it feels to lose just a little bit of control.
And the next moment find yourself in the bottom of a ditch,
waiting once again for someone to pull you from the wreckage
Because you can't save yourself.

I wanna save myself.  
And I don't need to know how the engine works.
Just teach me to read the warning signs when I'm heading south and there's no way for me to turn around.  
Let me know that when I start to let go, there are safety nets 'cause sometimes my mind is more of a balancing act, the bridge accident than a joy ride
So give me air bags,
give me seat belts,
Give me a crash test dummy.

If I cut the brake lines, show me how to coast to a stop.

Because people cannot live in a plastic bubble, rolling around at 5 mph for the rest of our lives,
repeating caution signs:
Don't blink,
Don't breath,
Don't move,
Don't freeze,
Don't drive,
Don't park,
Don't live.
Don't tell me don't tell me don't tell me
this is defensive living

Sometimes veering off the road, eyes shut tight on a straightaway covered in obstacles bigger than ourselves is the best we can do to survive.

Question: What do you do if your car crashes?
Answer: Just crash your car.

If I told you I wrote this poem for you
Would you start loving me?
Craving me the way I crave you
Go insane
Live in a world where nothing else exists
Do everything to make me understand
Fail but keep trying
If I told you I wrote this poem for you
Would you instantly run into my arms?
Kiss my lips and stare at the stars
Forget the world
Forget yourself
Yet somehow remember
What I was wearing the first day we met
If I told you I wrote this poem for you
Would you spend your days thinking about me?
Coming up with excuses just to see my face
Go to the same coffee shop
Hoping for me to show up
Note down ‘Spiced latte, no sugar’
Just so if the day comes
You know what I would order
If I told you I wrote this poem for you
Would you start dreaming of the future?
A small chapel by the sea
Gathered friends and family
Vows and bells
Our kid’s show and tell
A family portrait hung on the wall
If I told you I wrote this poem for you
Would you be mine forever?
Let me die in your arms
Happy and loved
If you would
Then my love
I wrote this poem for you

(Kathmandu, Nepal 12/22/2013)

When I was 13,
I went up to my mother and told her that I wasn't beautiful because
my eyes were too close together
and that my gut hung lower
and my teeth went out farther.
my hair was too coarse
and my appetite was too large,
my skin was too dark
and my nose was too wide.

When I was 13,
I told my mother that beautiful came in only one size
and one size only
and I happened to be 3 sizes too large.
See I thought that all because I saw it to be true.
Oh how I wished to be that girl in the magazines because even the girl in the magazine wanted to be her.
Oh how I wished on every birthday and new years eve to lose weight and to be pretty.
I struggled so long with this issue of mine.
So long that it became a constant companion by my side.
See I longed for that day when everything would be alright.
For that day when I could look in the mirror and think I looked fine.
For the heavens to open up and the stars align,
crying out the one phrase that would change my mind;
you are beautiful, no matter what size.
See the heavens never opened up and the stars stayed the same
but all I can say is that my mindset changed.
Beautiful comes in many sizes, from extra small to triple extra large.

*-c.a.