i thought feeling good about myself for once would cure everything, but the cure is two steps backwards of where i am today. two tea leaves and a tail’s length from here; hop-skip the finish line like when i was five and didn’t know how big the sky was. pixie stix and a spotted dress that smelled like roses with a purple stain down the front and ***** knees and sweet sticky skin, sweetflesh and goldfish and ******* bears roaring about on the roads. inside my head there’s a phoenix fire, burning sand to breath silvery threads into the creature that thrusts its head into my mouth to scream alive.

mi lucha, preciosa, me vuelvo loco aqui. me estan volviendo por fin, eternamente.

dead and alive and spattered in paint that feels like his heartbeat... waking up on the floor with twelve stitches in my arm and a chipped tooth. the one that got away, the one with no name, the one that pretty turned her back on. the one that you hate, the one that is loved, the one that spends one minute thinking what takes them a lifetime. the one that will never be the next-door neighbor with the loud golden retriever and cold fruitcakes on christmas eve, the one that says ponytails are overrated.

the one that is me.

the one that is here

for now.