Do you feel your head unspooling into the universe?

The ends of the string are fraying at the edges, 

irreparably stained with the stardust at the ends

 of the many worlds you stretch across.

Do you feel your tight-stitched, needle-sharp, double-knotted 

Child's brain falling up, up into the

Twilight, into heaven's most beautiful 

Graveyard, where all the other radiant little minds go to wait?

You can never rewind. 

You can never un-grow up.

Is it wrong 

to want to be a princess?

Is it naive or childish?

Because I want to be in a world where at 16 

I find my prince charming, 

where every year onwards is happily ever after

I want to be the model of beauty and wit and love

with only a few flaws in etiquette

I know it's vain 

but I want be who a little girl wants to be someday

So is it so bad to want to be a princess?

To want to be twirled by the kindest gentleman

while my ball gown spins around me 

and a maid to tell me if my shoes match my shirt

I want to smile and laugh without a care in the world

I want to be beloved by all

I know it's egocentric, 

and ignorant 

to want to be a princess

and think it's all sunshine and rainbows

I know it's foolish and shallow 

But can I just want to be a princess?

pretend to forget the pressure and just spin into a world 

where everyone is happy

and I don't have to worry

can I want to be a princess, just for tonight?

a symphony of saxophone and jazzy drums plays

for a crowd of men in wide collared shirts and women in boxy dresses

in their hands are drinks

martinis and manhattans 

with glistening ice cubes inside their glasses

this dream world smells of cigarette smoke and floral perfume

and exists only when you put on a record

and listen close

when I was young, I wanted to be the girls on the covers of the albums

that played these 60s dreamlike tunes

with catlike eyeliner and carefully styled hair

dressed in colorful clothes 

and adorned in jewelry of rubies, emeralds and sapphires

and maybe diamonds

for I was told they were forever

I wanted to put on one of these records

Henry Mancini's "two for the road" 

or Burt Bacharach's "Alfie" 

and dance with a boy in a tailored suit

to twirl and watch my short pink dress sway as I moved

and hold his hands 

dancing like they did in the movies

now as I listen to these albums, 

alone

I wonder if he'd dance with me 

the boy I always pictured back then

I lie on my couch as the record plays

imagining this moment once more

because in my heart

we'll have that one dance

it'll feel like 1965

we'll be serenaded by saxophone 

and be so deep in love

someday

I hope you will dance with me.  

I'm a poet,

I'm a writer,

I'm a sister.

I'm outrageous,

I'm silly, 

I'm weird.

I'm also not special

I'm not better

or the best

But I want to be.

I want to be special, 

I want to be better, 

I want to be the best.

I want to be a better writer,

I want to be recognized as somebody that's especially good at something.

I want people to think of me as the best of the best.

And I'm not any of those things yet.

But I want to be.

After all, that's why I'm here.

*lines in italics are from Jane Eyre

Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?

Because I fear

For the warm skin

Between your shoulder

And collarbone,

The slick hair

That coils at the nape 

Of your neck.

I had cherished the thought of one day seeing him: now, I never should. 

He is like the scent of briar-roses–sickly-sweet in summer,

Humming through the wood with the frogs and midnight jasmine,

Burnt to memory by October. Once pooling in my pores,

Now soft as a song against my tongue.

I used to write poems, when nights were thick with thoughts of him.

I want to know him again,

But his scent is gone from my wrists.

The restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. 

And so I ran, windswept, after you

And wrote you into songs that sounded like

Jeans and lemonade, since I was bored of his agate eyes

And moonstone bones. I wanted you,

My pyrite. Did the moon hang

Like a dish of gold or butter, and call to me?
I have always wanted to scream back. 

It always seems that 
In the unruly depths of each Alabama winter 
I long for summer 
For campfires and S'mores 
And laughing louder than the cicadas 
I long for the sticky-sweet popsicle melt running down my arm 
For the thorns scraping at my ankles 
For unexplained bruises 
And for car trips that last forever 

And it always seems that
In the hazardous halls of this high school
I long for childhood
For free Publix cookies
And Disney songs haunting every drive
I long to be swinging and running at the playground
For chocolate milk before bed
For just one more story
And pretending to fall asleep in the car

And it always seems that
In the concrete darkness of the city
I long for color
For fields of wildflowers
And dirt roads that lead to nowhere
I long to bike past local, family-owned shops
For dandelions and clovers
For second-hand books
And knowing all my neighbors by name

And it always seems that
In the bright loud chaos of today
I long for simple things
For baking bread alone at night
And sharing it with strangers
I long to keep fresh flowers in my room, depending on the season
For reading cozy mysteries
For sitting by the window
And relishing in the quiet peace of it
 

broke out a pen, not a pencil

i usually use pencils for english homework,

mechanical ones,

teal or purple.

but i guess it's different

with forgotten homework,

either rushed or

completed by chatgpt

at 10:59 pm.

i don't want to do homework

or study for the tests

i have tomorrow.

i want to write poems,

is what i say.

i want to write poems

forever.

poems read by everyone

across the world.

but i want to go to sleep.

eyelids melting during class,

drifting off,

a new habit for me.

dream of all the poems

i could be writing

about being drained,

while drained.

i do a lot of thinking without writing.

for a writer.

too lazy to grab my journal

out of my nightstand,

open a new document on my laptop.

but i'm doing it now,

perhaps a sign.

it may be to go to bed,

but in the least,

a sign.

and maybe it will say

something else tomorrow.

i hope it will say something else tomorrow.

but i'll check back again, at 10:59 pm.