in which i don’t write about myself

it’s odd when i peel back my forehead & let others judge my skull for its porcelain sheen like when i hide tear tracks with daisies & revel the graduation to the front seat of my mother’s maroon hatchback it’s when i peel off half my nail polish & treat the remainder like inkblots & run my tongue against the roof of my mouth looking for answers for plastic pirate treasures that i wish still delighted me are you poking my frontal lobe & judging as it swallows your fingernail? mama said i always had a hungry mind yes she did yes i do do i?

i'll always envy the poets who plunge their fists into their chests & show off their sinews, raw & wet with blood this is a personal narrative shut in a rose-trimmed armoire & these biting idiosyncracies i just can't illustrate: the ones where i realize i'm happy and suddenly i'm not the moments when the holes in my jeans gape & threaten to swallow me the times when you weave your stories into ampersands & i want to do the same . . . & it's those moments when i realize i don't have a story at least, not one worth telling or reading or knowing