I ask you if you think I am
beautiful,
and I hate every word before it
leaves my mouth.
I hate the way my body
speaks in insecurities,
the way your words are a
blanket I know I need.
“of course, baby”
I love this sentence just as
much as I hate it.
I hate my need for it,
my requirement of it for
safety within my own
goddamn body.
And so I hold my breath,
and bring my gaze to my own legs,
smiling slightly,
trying.
so badly,
I wanted to be
something,
so badly
that I forgot
who I was
you throw around
words and sentences to
entertain your
time, not thinking for a
moment, of the
pain you leave
behind
you tell
me to create
art like reflections of
the human soul but
you turn the other
way because you are
afraid of mirrors.
You rip her
away, with your
fingers around her
neck, and blow
every piece of her
into the wind because
your wishes need a
carrier and she
does not need
anything.
Hello,
I am not who you think I am.
Isn’t it funny that you would think that?
Yes,
people-watching is my favorite past time,
but that is because I am pretending,
you cannot assign stories to people
and expect them to take it.
Yes,
I know I like to wear dresses and my hair is long and
I paint my lips in pretty shades of pink but
No,
I do not dream of picket fence kids.
I kiss girls instead of boys, actually.
No,
I am not a fragile stemmed dandelion for you to rip from my home,
just to sing your wishes into the wind like a song.
Hello,
I am not who you think I am,
unless I have told you so.
society’s greatest
challenge is to
distinguish the
power from the
presidency
you tell the
little girls to be
nice and they take it
too far
we scratch at our
skin looking for
holes in our
happiness and don’t
realize we are digging
holes in ourselves
she made herself
smaller and
smaller,
the less space she
inhabited the
more space reserved
for everyone else –
and isn’t that how
self worth is
measured?
The Words She Scratched into the Mirror 
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