Perhaps I'm most beautiful
asleep in class,
the blue light of the overhead projector
kissing my face.
When I make my friends shake with
stupid, unbridled, blind laughing,
leaning against the vending machine.
When I tilt my head back
at the good part of a song,
sitting in the sweet-smelling bus seat,
my knees propped up.
When I stay up 'til eleven,
and talk about fourteen-year-old thoughts.
When I get joyfully lost in my own weird, growing-up thoughts,
sitting in church,
and I get startled by the Lord's prayer.

I like my ****** expressions, my bright eyes, my delicate eyelashes, my pale hands, lace veins lining them, and my aching heart.
The pain in my chest
in the middle of a song.
My heavy eyelids.
My light, weighed-down feet.
And my hipbones
that carry the weight of the world.

Welcome to the end of the earth
dripping honey til' we die.
Welcome to an alleyway as big as a building,
welcome to a spaceship, floating past personal galaxies,
welcome to a small pond with big fish.
Welcome to where you find out
who you are, and who everybody else is.
Welcome to the rest of your life,
or where you wanna end it.
Welcome to pixelated faces,
melting faces,
****** knuckles
and television screens for heads.
Welcome to pop-rocks crushes,
pink-haired goddesses,
and art of our own.
Welcome to sunlight through your hair on the bus.
Welcome to hell, or high school, you pick,
it doesn't really matter anyway.

"What's your current mood?"
"Well, I'm anxious. But I'm literally anxious all the time. And sleepy. Basically I'm just chill today."*


What makes us girls
might be
when we're silhouetted
as we walk home with a pizza in our arms.
When I stole your band shirt and washed my hair in your sink and then cut it over a pink towel in my lap.
Us sitting under a bridge,
graffiti,
telling us nothing is real,
as birthmarks,
next to the railroad tracks as a train flies by
and tousles our hair.
Your eyes hurting because of the sleep hanging on them
with dark, stained fingers.
Passing a wedding
and being tempted to crash it.
An empty, blue bottle of whipped-cream flavored *****
lying in the dry grass.
Waking up to the sounds of a block party outside.
Knowing that if 11-year-old you saw you now,
she wouldn't believe her eyes.
Laughing until you're positively sure you're bruised inside.
Screaming with joy
because I finally finished my math homework.
Swearing I'm going to grow up and write a sitcom
based on our adventures when I grow up.
Wearing shirts with angel wings on the back.
And
being both terrified
and back-of-your-head-hurts-excited
for the future.

This summer was missing school, feeling it ache in your chest,
and feeling like a nerd
but also sad.
It was staying up late, your face lit by your phone screen, blue.
It was skype calls at 11, hearing things you know you would never hear in daylight.
It was a bolt of lightning curling down your spine at the notification noise
hoping it's
someone
in
particular.
It's not getting texted back.
It was your mom's friend yelling at you,
when you ran from the playground,
bare feet on the dusty road,
after a cop car pulled in.
It was bubble tea and fuzzy navels at the local fair,
pulling hair and carving our names into the ferris wheel seat
with the broken end of my glasses.
It's sleeping on the floor for a few minutes, but then
crawling into bed with your friend and giving up there.
It's long showers when I sing the way I wish I could
out from under the water.
It was walking down my road, so paranoid
I think a car is a giant man,
to the starbucks, and then the movie theatre,
and then the curb, where I wait in the warm dark.
It was jumping into brown water, screaming.
It's the hum of my computer.
It was feeling the bass of a song ricochet through your feet,
vibrating the floor,
and traveling down the street.
It's downing a cup of hot sauce.
It was Portland, Maine,
walking to record stores in your lunch break,
a bagel sandwich cooling in your backpack.
Seeing a girl hold another girl's head to the ground, and screaming at a man with dreadlocks,
"That's the father of my ******* baby,"
while a woman with a cat on her shoulder
films it.
It's sitting in the library in ripped pantyhose reading comics for an hour
while your dad's at work.
It was Ben and Jerry's, and Chinese food,
walking in between dumpsters to get there.
It was waking up at noon and missing church.
It was eating cereal at 12 am,
6 pm,
11 pm.
It was blinding, white-hot sadness,
blinking and confused,
wondering why I felt so rainy inside,
while outside was sunshine filtering through green leaves.
This summer was
long, and lonely, and sometimes rainy,
and dark,
and sunny, and loud, and hazy.
This summer
is almost
over
and I think I'm okay with that.

Would the police look
at my dead hands
and say "she never worked a day in her life."
or not?
Or would they just sigh
and wonder
why
I died so young.

I grew up
with people taking pictures
of my face
with or without asking.
I didn't mind then,
and honestly,
I don't think I would mind now.
And I'm unsure
if that's a good thing
or a bad thing.

I tried to scrub your name
out of my head,
but all I got was skin and soap
under my nails.