““I don’t know if you remember me;
The first time we met
I was thirteen
And the last day you saw me
You were eighteen.
I just thought I’d let you know
How things have gone.

I’ve gained two inches,
But I’d still like to shed a few pounds.
My hair’s still the same
Boring black-brown,
Even though it’s past my shoulders now.

I still bite my lip,
Lean back on my left leg,
Right hand on my hip.

Thunder storms still scare me,
And rollercoasters freak me out,
And I still hate
Being alone in my house.

I still take pictures
And I still paint with words,
And just like I promised,
I still play with my curls.

I still stick out my tongue
When I get annoyed
And I still keep a book
With quotes I love.

I still don’t wear makeup,
Because you gave me the courage,
And I still overdress
Like its my job.

I still remember
How it felt
On a picnic in the park
When you wrapped your
Fingers around mine.
And you whispered in my ear,
“I love you,
Always have,
Always will."

I still love you
And I always have,
Always will.
It’s still been
Several years since
I last saw you,
But I was just wondering
If you love me still?”

I survived K-12 schooling
I read and researched a lot
I went to political meetings
I investigated social ***.
I met with some politicians
And then sterilized my hands.
Anyone who has ever met them
Will instantly understand.

Then an idiot ran for office
And I told myself he wouldn’t win
And that was when I wanted
The Big Do-Over to begin.
Because that idiot was picked
To be the Mutton In Chief
When it was widely known
He was a serial adulterer, liar,
Cheater, embezzler and thief.

He immediately set about
Instilling high dollar nepotism
By using his offsprings as proxies
And promulgating social schism.
He thinks he is the role model
Everyone else should follow
When someone else talks like that,
He finds them hard to swallow.

All he really wants is worship
Because he thinks he’s a god.
He doesn’t recognize he is crazy,
He can’t see his behavior as odd.
He’s the modern-day Caligula,
But he won't accept that of course,
Even though he has appointed
Crooks that are the back of a horse.

So, let’s have a do-over now!
Let's put someone trained in place
Of an overdress orangutan
With an big fat orange face.
Let’s put someone in there
That is and intelligent  human.
Oh, I have an idea, everyone.
Let’s elect to the job a woman!

(a poem in six stained glass windows)

I. BECOMING

I used to flinch when someone said
“You’re gonna be big someday,”
like—how big?
How loud?
How lonely?
How much of me
do I have to lose
to be loved that widely?

I kissed a boy once
just to see if I could still feel small.
I could.
then I wrote about it,
rhymed tongue with undone,
called it healing.

Some nights I Google myself
with the same hunger
you search a symptom.
Just hoping it’s not fatal.
Just hoping it is.
Just hoping there’s finally
a name for it.

My digital footprint is a shrine
to girls I outgrew but never buried,
their teenage poems
still written in Sharpie
on the back of my ribs.

My first book will ship with
a hand strung bracelet that says
“I survived myself.”

II. PERFORMING

Every time I tell the story
I’m a little more clever,
a little less heartbroken,
a little more
dangerous,
a little more wrong.

I have a bad habit
of leaving confessions in comment sections—
breadcrumbs on the internet floor,
for anyone sad enough
to mistake me
for a map.

I used to rehearse goodbyes in mirrors,
just to see if my eyes could lie
as well as my mouth did.
They could.
They still can.

They called me brave
for saying it out loud.
But I only said it
because the silence was louder.

The secret to staying soft
is deleting the parts
where I’m anything else.

I write best in hotel rooms
because they feel borrowed, too—
because no one expects
the towels to stay white
or the girl to stay quiet.

III. DISGUISING

“SENSITIVE” was printed on my sweatshirt
the night he told me
I hurt myself through him—
at least now he can’t say
I never gave a trigger warning.

Half of my closet is clearance rack chaos,
the other half is second-hand salvation—
each hanger a theory
of who I’ll be next.
Sometimes I dress like the version of me
I think he could’ve stayed for.

Every good body day feels like a plot twist,
like God gave me
a guest pass
to precious.

He said I was too much,
but whispered it like praise.
Now I underline his fears
in neon.

Some nights I still wake at 3:14
to texts I dreamt he sent—
all apologies
and no punctuation.

I screenshot compliments
like they’re prescriptions,
take two every six hours,
pray my body doesn’t reject them.
One day, I’ll ask the pharmacy
if they carry praise
in extended-release.

Every dress in my closet whispers
“wear me to his funeral,”
but he keeps refusing to die,
so I just overdress for brunch—
and sit facing the door
just in case.

IV. SEARCHING

I footnoted the grief.
Added asterisks to all my ‘I’m fine’s.'
Even my browser history
reads like a ******* fire.

My greatest fear isn’t that I’ll fail—
it’s that someday I’ll win
and realize the trophy feels
exactly like loneliness,
but heavier.

I read horoscopes for signs of relapse,
Googling “Do Libras experience nostalgia?”
at 5:15 a.m. like a drunk astrologer
pleading with the stars
to cut me off.

I used to edit Wikipedia pages
for characters who reminded me of myself,
changing their endings to
“she survives,”
“she gets out,”
“she burns the diary.”
They banned my IP
for excessive optimism.
I took it as a compliment.

V. RECKONING

The girls who follow me online
all think I have answers.
I don’t.
I have questions in fancy fonts
and delusions of grandeur
dressed as advice.

My therapist asks me to describe “progress,”
and I show her unsent messages,
leftover pills,
and a notebook filled with
poems written in my sleep—
and one that woke me up
Screaming.

Some of you highlight my breakdowns
like they’re quotes.
I get it.
I do it too.

VI. ALONE

My brain is a group chat
of all the selves I've ghosted,
texting in all caps
and sending GIFs that scream,
"Remember when you thought you'd be happy by now?"

If this poem goes viral,
tell them I made it big.
Tell them I got loud.
Tell them I wasn’t lonely.
Just alone
by design.
Like all cathedrals are.

what people say lately
the compliments
give me a headache

i think too much
was my makeup too much?
did i overdress? underdress?

but why should i torture myself
with such unimportant questions?
i am pretty.
and i deserve it.