writing...still being twisted and buffed
Stolen Season
This is my stolen season. This is the second spring in a year that has already fulfilled its due calendar. This is unreality. This is what leaves a scar. This is the endorphin kick that leaves a thin red line on the arms of thin pale girls who can't purge feelings through talks. This is the makeup I wear to the club that leaves blemishes when I wipe it off the next day. This is the leg massage I got from a boy who isn't allowed to touch me. This is a loan from the bank, accumulating tax as a neat, snowballing statement on my balance. This is the car for which the bank gave me that loan. This is the set of darting brown eyes that belong to a friend who is leaning in to tell me a secret. This is the anticipation and excitement I get when her eyes bounce, scanning faces around the hall for unwelcome familiarity. She'll lean in now and tell me she's pregnant.
But not yet.
She isn't pregnant yet.
Not if she hasn't told me
yet.
So I interrupt that girl before she tells me. Before her eyes stop bouncing. Enjoy the endorphins and hope no one sees red lines on little girls' arms. I'll wear my makeup and never wipe it off. I will allow the leg massage and have friends who aren't driven or concerned enough to stop me. I'll hide all the bank statements from family and when they come over for dinner, and then I'll leave the city.
I'll leave the state.
I'll abandon
this country, and
this season.
I'll steal it all back.
Lips
I have her lips.
They're quaint and turgid with a freckle on the bottom rim.
I have to lick ice cream off of them. I have to suck air through her lips.
She's always so sick that I constantly feel contagious. She's always uninvited but around. Always hugging me, unprovoked, in an old, musty robe she never washes and it reeks of her and her memory.
She's invaded my face.
Not in my nose of eyes, but through my hair, forming my mouth, into my cheekbones.
I wonder if writing will erase her from my mind. I'm curious if plastic surgery will ever be enough, or if there are already too many pictures of me with her smile, too many kisses with her lips, too many years looking like her.
It's not too late. Resolve is flowering. It's worth attempting. I could stop resembling the girl with her lips. I can stop the memories' building.
People will fail to recognize me. The past would remain as any, but the present rides on a phone call, an appointment, a few grand and a new pair of lips. I don't care whose lips, so long as they're no longer hers. They can be fat and limp like curtains for my smile, like an exlover, or they can be punctuated with scars like a stranger, just so long as I can avoid
the quarantine of her resemblance,
of her lips.
This is my stolen season. This is the second spring in a year that has already fulfilled its due calendar. This is unreality. This is what leaves a scar. This is the endorphin kick that leaves a thin red line on the arms of thin pale girls who can't purge feelings through talks. This is the makeup I wear to the club that leaves blemishes when I wipe it off the next day. This is the leg massage I got from a boy who isn't allowed to touch me. This is a loan from the bank, accumulating tax as a neat, snowballing statement on my balance. This is the car for which the bank gave me that loan. This is the set of darting brown eyes that belong to a friend who is leaning in to tell me a secret. This is the anticipation and excitement I get when her eyes bounce, scanning faces around the hall for unwelcome familiarity. She'll lean in now and tell me she's pregnant.
But not yet.
She isn't pregnant yet.
Not if she hasn't told me
yet.
So I interrupt that girl before she tells me. Before her eyes stop bouncing. Enjoy the endorphins and hope no one sees red lines on little girls' arms. I'll wear my makeup and never wipe it off. I will allow the leg massage and have friends who aren't driven or concerned enough to stop me. I'll hide all the bank statements from family and when they come over for dinner, and then I'll leave the city.
I'll leave the state.
I'll abandon
this country, and
this season.
I'll steal it all back.
Lips
I have her lips.
They're quaint and turgid with a freckle on the bottom rim.
I have to lick ice cream off of them. I have to suck air through her lips.
She's always so sick that I constantly feel contagious. She's always uninvited but around. Always hugging me, unprovoked, in an old, musty robe she never washes and it reeks of her and her memory.
She's invaded my face.
Not in my nose of eyes, but through my hair, forming my mouth, into my cheekbones.
I wonder if writing will erase her from my mind. I'm curious if plastic surgery will ever be enough, or if there are already too many pictures of me with her smile, too many kisses with her lips, too many years looking like her.
It's not too late. Resolve is flowering. It's worth attempting. I could stop resembling the girl with her lips. I can stop the memories' building.
People will fail to recognize me. The past would remain as any, but the present rides on a phone call, an appointment, a few grand and a new pair of lips. I don't care whose lips, so long as they're no longer hers. They can be fat and limp like curtains for my smile, like an exlover, or they can be punctuated with scars like a stranger, just so long as I can avoid
the quarantine of her resemblance,
of her lips.