I.
i'm clingy.
you can't manage to love someone that always happens to stick onto you like fresh fallen snow on the bottom of your snowboots or pounding water that adheres to your skin in a shower. no one wants someone who they can't shake off and get away from a little. but with me, i will try my hardest not to let that happen. because i can't even fathom the thought of you walking out that door and never coming back.

II.
my brain is like spaghetti.
my thoughts are always messy and all over the place. it's extremely challenging to sort everything out so i don't even try anymore. everything just jumbles and mixes together and you can't really differentiate one strand from another. and my grandmother always told me that guys don't like messy girls.

III.
sometimes i'm just a really sad poem with feet.
i get into moods. moods where i think everything is wrong and that i'm useless. no one likes girls like that. boys like confidence, right?

IV.
i'll try to make a home out of you.
and you can't make homes out of people. but i don't think that'll ever get through my thick skull.

V.
you don't know how to love me.
no one does. no one has quite been able to figure it out.
and i think you're okay with that.

One dream of at least one child is that it will snow on Christmas
This year there was no snow.
Just a pang of sadness when the children looked out the window.
Even now i wish for snow
I just hope to use my snowboots one last time
before I put them away in the basement below.

When the boys say they "won't go as big as.." you,
When you look more like a teacher than a student,
When you see the other girls' expressions at you in the school bathroom mirror while they reapply their eyeliner,
When you sweat feverishly around those fragile powder-fresh beauties,
When you accidentally knock their things off their desks because your thighs can't fit and you were nervous to get up and walk in front of them anyways,
When they take selfies with you and your face is a mass of red, your eyes lost in your glasses, and you a blob,
When the boys you care for or even love profess their devotion to girls who are so much more beautiful than you could ever be,
When that baggy t-shirt look doesn't look chic because you have only high-neck boy shirts and are too top heavy;

Don't try to explain that your money goes to groceries so you can't afford team membership dues much less a new blouse.
Don't explain that your nice shoes need a retouch of hotglue so you really only had your snowboots.
Don't tell them that you didn't put on makeup because your mom was in the er, because even though she was, you didn't bother because you knew no amount of makeup could make them see you as an equal.
Don't you dare show them your scars.

Know that they do not laugh at you because you are not significant enough to be the topic of their conversation.
If someone says privately that they want you they will not acknowledge you in public.
If a cute person online shows interest, trust your instincts because those kind of people do not look at your kind of people.
Know that when you meet someone you might like, knowing how others see you, it's your choice if you want to hope that this one will see you any differently.

The sweet exhalations of my Caroline girl
fog the windows of our wood-lined station wagon
moving down US 20.
Her doughball palms and fudgy fingers pressed against the thick glass,
her bright pink hat nods as the
snowglobe snowflakes flurry to the ground.
Strapped into her car seat, her plump legs kick forth
left - right
left - right
left - right;
a staccato rhythm forming from a pair of Barbie light-up snowboots
that beat the back of my driver's seat.
We are shooting forward,
straight into the horizon. Into the unknown and away from what was.
The blush sunset and amber clouds foretell
the future.