The child becomes

The man you'll see

With traits of those

He imitates

He mirrors those

That cause his fate

Who teach him love

Who teach him hate

Every morning 

My dad writes me a note on a napkin
He thinks I don’t read them

But every “have a good day!”

Is tucked away 

Into an old blue shoebox under my bed

Freshman year this boy wrote me a letter

With the words: why do you come to school looking like you just rolled out of bed?

I stored the words in my mind 

And the paper in a shoe box 

Now I wear dresses almost every day
And wake up 20 minutes earlier to do my makeup


I’ve been telling myself I’m over you 

But I pull your shoebox out of my closet

I cry over our photo strips and 

The origami flower you made me

When you didn’t have money for a real bouquet 

As I put the box back I tell myself

Maybe next time I’ll throw it away

The flower is crushed and soggy anyway.

Every time I buy a new pair of shoes 

I keep the box
It keeps my arms from aching too much

From the weight of all the things I hold on to.

This is to the camera, that sees me as nothing but
Delicate bones and pearly whites
My essence captured through awkward captions and
My worth measured by likes and heart bytes
A photograph carefully composed
Of a girl with her true thoughts [boxed up tight]

This is to the boys who see me as nothing but
Geometric shapes
Circles and curves and parabolas
**** and *** and legs and waist
And an irrelevant concave where my brain should be
My “radical ideas” make me a butterface

This is to the academy, that sees me as nothing but
3.97 and a good SAT score
A scholar of great potential
That will donate millions or more
As an honored alumni
Of the greatest institution in the world

This is to society, that sees me as nothing but
A golden gal who always colored inside the lines
Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes, no fire in my soles

“She’s never insubordinate, ‘cause she’s never been inclined”
Determined but docile
Go ahead and assume I’m not the rebellious kind

This is to myself, because I see that
My mind is a kaleidoscope of technicolor dreams
Ideas colliding like specks in sunbeams  
And I’ll call myself a feminist or riot grrl if I **** well please
You are not my dictator or an office label machine
It’s 2015; I’ll be whatever the hell I want to be.

Behold my eye
See what I see
Age is lovely
According to me

Wrinkles like road maps of where i've been
Crow’s feet of joy
And frown lines of sorrow

Spots of warm summers
Long past
Stuck on my face
From the ancient sun
That sets in the West

My voice
Past its time
Telling stories of my prime
When my beauty was clear to see
And people didn't have pity on me

Now that I'm old
And hunched and grey
Look beyond my face
Where my true beauty lay

so much to say
violence in head
everyday, I
     say something stupid instead

So much to say
bracing the salt-waves
that skin me more red
       I bend over laughing because I'm so brave

why a poet?
because a poet
hears the words
which sing the
purest harmonies
because a poet
paints their portraits
in pastels
of phrases
because a poet
dances their agonies
into leaps of faith
and pirouettes
of passion
because a poet
sees
the beauty
in the commonplace
and captures
the moment
in a snapshot
of ink and white
because a bloodless world
cuts itself
a thousand times

and the poet bleeds