Poetry

I’ve had pomegranates twice in my 17 years.

Each time, I was awed at how 

something with such a mysterious foreign air

 could hold so many intricate bursts of joy. 

All I’ve got is the shell:

I always thought it would be like the movies

Beach trips and ice cream

Field trips and cheering on sports teams

Late nights with fairy lights

My first kiss

That feeling of bliss

It’s not

Before you were sick, you were ignorant. For all the words and sentences you had accumulated, your consciousness was blank; unmarked snow covering scarred earth below. Before you were sick, you were cocooned.

"Happy New Year!"

"I got a little lost; can you show me the way?"

"Inauguration day is just around the corner!"

"Welcome to eleventh grade. You're almost out!"

"Hi, my name's what's your name? 

It’s a skull-shaped pot of wilted flowers on the porch waiting for the tide to rise, pick it up, and take it away to Dreamland, where it belongs.

"Fun is overrated. 

You just always want to make sure

Everyone's happy.

In fact, 

If anything,

You should be prettier. 

Like in life."

I didn't want to be prettier. 

before he'd left

i could find things

because i knew 

i wanted it to be different for me

you talked too much

or not enough

you let yourself go

or your makeup looked too harsh 

I wished I knew all the right things to say. 

Or maybe my wish was bigger than that.

I wanted to always be enough.

***

"I'm fine. I don't know what's wrong with me."

I stayed up until midnight with my brother

in that horrible hotel room in North Carolina.

(I say horrible because I hate going down south

hate the Trump bobblehead in my nonny and poppy's house

You compared me to a"beautiful flower."

I don't think I'm beautiful.

Especially not like the pink flower you said I was.

I'd say I'm more like a notebook, 

there, but not noticed.

Wow - 2026? 2025 passed so fast!

Today I looked back on the past.

It was hard last year, maybe the last couple of years, actually.

Why do people say that?

How do people say that?

They say it as if it's all a joke,

and maybe to them it is,

but to the people being bullied it's not, 

 it never was,

and it never will be.