Her hands clutch the cell phone and
fiddle with the corners of the case.
Feet fidgeting under the desk, stuffed into socks and shiny flats.

She did not ask her phone to bring her an orchestra,
did not order its overture for her office or invite it in the door.
It is somehow blind to the colorless room and the fine print and the Do Not Disturb sign.

It’s not like she even wants this call to start, really,
but it feels strange not to be working,
to simply sit at her desk and be serenaded by some forgotten symphony.
She counts the minutes of focus this will lose her and the lost time begins to weigh on her like drying cement.
She can't shake it as it suctions her into her seat and plants her eyes on the screen.

But her ears are elsewhere.
The notes are kind of soft and pensive and it sounds like her mother’s whisper or maybe like a cat. Gentle.

It feels risky to compliment a distraction.

I still need to learn that I am not the very worst.
That I am not the only one with actions to regret.
That people don't walk by me thinking, She must have been cursed.
That people who don't think this haven't always been misled.

And I still need to learn that I am also not the best.
That "Others are below me" is a thought that's wrong, untrue.
That they are better than me, in ways I've never guessed.
That we have more in common than I ever, ever knew.

Self-care does not mean you should forget to care for others;
Loving others does not mean you do not have to love yourself.
Looking out dark windows, all you see is your own face, and that's 'cause
You're the one who's looking.

Not because there's no one else.

I was fearless. Untouchable. Knew who I was. What I wanted.
“Life is hard”? Yeah, maybe for
some but
not for me.
I had it all figured out.

There wasn’t much I needed to wish for, but the act of it was fun.
My dime shone at the bottom of the mall fountain, bright against
All those rusty pennies from the kind of people who would
Sit at the edge of the water and
Sigh, all starry-eyed.
I wasn’t like them. I was business. I whispered my wish. Not breathy. Firm:

Make me a hero.

I hadn’t noticed she was watching. She maybe
Went to my school, but I didn’t remember.

A hero, huh? Almost accusatory.
You should take up people-watching.

I blinked. Glanced from the bustling makeup-store patrons to the
Five-year-old at the gumball machine. Their full bags. His gleaming quarter.

Not those people.

please don’t be afraid to paint your nails.

please don't teach yourself to shudder at
the time it takes to dry
because you've decided it's a crime
to be temporarily unavailable; please don't

cower at the notion
that someone might need you
to mop the floor or
do their hair and
just this once you’ll
have to ask them
to wait; please don't

let yourself think that
to be a good person you
have to be there every minute,
no breaks,
ready.

please don’t rob yourself
of those few giddy moments
the polish shiny
fresh
yours.

Partly inspired by my phone because that's where I started writing it and I copied a lot of the "line breaks" that came from the smaller screen.

I forgot the tree in my yard bloomed so beautifully,
never knew my friends were so much more
amazing than I thought
     (or liked this or
     were good at that);
failed to understand how complex people are, beyond the hours, the few spoken words,
during which our lives overlap

The world reminds me, peeling fruit I never sliced into
because they were too bruised for me to accept
but not all parts are "rotten"
and there's strength in the soft spots
that I didn't notice.

The world nudges me
in the shoulder,
trying to turn my eyes from the mirrors and journals
and pay attention for once, because more things matter than myself
and I'm blocking those around me with unneccessary thoughts

Sometimes as I
wait for sleep to come,
I pack up my thoughts and drop them into
other people's bedrooms--
friends, family, the kid I sat behind in class

I try to picture them in bed
Curled up? Lying flat?
Reading by pearly light or
trying in vain to undo today?

The man at the grocery store,
the girl on the bike with the yellow streamers,
the voice on the radio--
I don't know them.
Not even the classmates I've
labeled in my brain--
I can barely see into them, no clearer than
the nighttime outline of my familiar furniture.

Yet all these people lie in darkness now;
what is it that keeps them up?
I want to know who they are in the dark moments.

When the daily happenings--
people, mealtimes, work--
when they all fade into what was,
what parts of them linger?
What do they worry about and
what one hope do they

The back of my mind is a freezer
you never know what you'll stumble upon--
cake left from the perfect birthday, frozen dumplings for nights when
cooking feels like drowning

it's fun, if you're in the mood
pluck out three things and
find their meaning,
try for a meal

I try for poems,
mix-and-match with moments and metaphors,
frozen peas and leftover fish,
taking inventory in spiral-bound notebooks

do words ever expire? do feelings grow stale?

poems have no ingredient lists
they come from everywhere

Swallow your pride
(but don't let it scorch your tongue)
the best cook knows how to be tiny
curl up and trade secrets with a peppercorn

sometimes the key is
shrinking your judgment while
growing your heart

become a liquid
take the shape of someone else's container
learn to love the nooks and crannies
of their soul

as for icebreakers:
rapping small talk against the surface
makes a nice-sounding crackle
but sometimes you have to
dive deep into freezing water
and shiver through another's worries

polar bears have feelings too

and pass notes
(when no one's looking)
(and also when the whole world stares)
be proud about it
fold love into
paper cranes and
love into fortune tellers

open your mind so you can
open every flap:

you will make
a friend.

Click the mute button
and your voice is no longer heard.

Click stop video and you are no longer seen.

You are invisible.
Yes, really.
Wasn't that easy?

Two clicks, and you've created a wall that no one can see through.
Two clicks, and anything could happen to you and no one would know.
Two clicks, and you're nothing more than a name in sans-serif font.
​
You are far too far away.

I can't reach you, can't find you

and you're somewhere, in your own little world
a world I've never heard of
a world I'm not welcome in.

I want to x-ray my way through your little square
and discover what happens behind it
but you're gone now

like, really gone

like, I-have-no-idea-if-you're-listening-or-getting-a-glass-of-water-or-rocketing-off-into-space gone

and I wish I knew, but I don't:

where are you?

Black leggings are never really black.
I watch you roll off the lint and pick off the dog fur,
trying to swipe away their past like you're
plucking the stars from your own galaxy.

You are meticulous in everything,
trying to gain something out of reach,
promising yourself that if you can just achieve
an imposing solid black,
something will click in your world,
something you didn't have before.

To you, the dust is a disgrace,
a barrier to a world of perfection
that maybe, one day, you can break down.

Because for you, your world isn't enough.
You tell yourself that with lint on your leggings
you're failing yourself, keeping yourself down,
you tell yourself you will never be beautiful,
that you'll never be able to fly.

But you're beautiful when you stand with those you love
and you laugh and you don't worry about whether or not
your smile looks crooked.