Together
You’re different
With all of us
Versus just me.
You’re different
With a whole crazy friend group
Than you are when it’s us chilling in your basement watching Stranger Things
You’re different
With all of us
Versus just me.
You’re different
With a whole crazy friend group
Than you are when it’s us chilling in your basement watching Stranger Things
People want things from me
This incredible group of people
They want me to mediate
To laugh
To help them with x, y, and z
They want me to come with them
Pulling me in different directions constantly
Ad astra
Latin for to the stars
something that we've never done yet
but we've gone near.
We've never gone to the stars
we've reached the not-quite-emptiness that surrounds them.
I don't know what this is
whether it's summer really sinking in
or if it's something else
something more
something worse.
I don't want to turn into this
a puddle of negative feelings and boredom.
Everyone always thinks that people act a certain way to please the people around them
to code switch to what everyone else would want
to blend in
and that's what I do, too
except most of what I do
You have plastered my eyelids open
Non contact tonometry
Force fed with gavage until I no longer awake
at the smell of burning grease.
Burrowed into retinas like a small flaming needle,
My whole life I have been trying to tell a story so beautiful that the world would fall in love with me.
That is why I befriended words and stage lights.
That is why I watch the details of the world
Remember the girl?
She’s in second grade,
Maybe
Blond brown curls
Blue green eyes.
She’s sitting on the top metal pole of the fence
Chipped green paint
As it turns out
humans always
always
learn the hard way,
can never take the safe route.
We're that stupid, yes
but without human stupidity we wouldn't know about the pineapple
The gears click
spin
twirl into place
the momentum of thousands of dreams
swinging
gliding
leaping
across the vast emptiness we call home.
The dreams
along with hopes
fears
A childhood obsession, sure.
That's how it started.
But it's all I am -
It's who I am -
It's the deepest
Truest
Version of myself I could possibly be.
The notebook.
Stats and tracking
I will not shave my legs
not because I am against it
but because being myself feels like my own act
of rebellion
I will not quiet down
let the world hear my pride and excitement
but I will not shout