Sorta

I am too old             to feel             like this            again.

    The age old adages have come back to haunt me.

    Knives are like words from my ex best friend’s throat.

                                         And she lured me in, snakelike

                                         until I couldn’t see

                                         anything.

Not anything

at all

anymore.

Did you see the lights flicker?                Oh, but the stars shine

just for you.

It’s all an illusion,           it’s a game.       They feed me propaganda

and I spit it back for a grade

/in perfect unison/

I’m starting to agree I’m something punk rock

sorta vibe. I’m starting to hurt my ears just so I can’t hear what’s inside.

I’m starting to agree my anger is justified,

my breath of fresh air, electrified; all the wrong reasons, intensified;

glorified;

and they think me petrified           but the level I’m on made the pastors cry.

I can’t see the surface.                                               If I scream will my voice still be amplified?

That’s why:

I spit it into rough syllables, scream it in decibels

            /past a thousand/

write it in legible chalk on the ground and let                             people look and look past it

                                cause it might make someone uncomfortable.

                                     I haven’t been this way in ages

         been angry in enough to spit words and fill pages and

say everything I been holding back for fear of the rage might make someone afraid

                                                                             and not like what I have to say 

but screw it.

I’d rather have no friends and get all my words out then a party of friends

and an ache in my mouth                                         from keeping shut and quitting.

I ask my friends why I’m special to them and they chime back in eulogy,

list my awards in chronology like I am now their trophy wife.

               Rather, the real life 

               Trophy Mistress, Best Friend Resistance Part II (to you)

I’ve lived the way they make me say hello at parties.

It makes me uncomfortable.

Man, I’m singing now too, join me in my debut and we’ll put skulls on the cover and call it

anger. 

“Your writing is beautiful.”

“If it is then I haven’t done my job.”

I don’t recognize the ghostwriter I had last year

who occupied time trying for flowery language people’d call correct and only remember for a day.

I can’t say it that way, I can only make sounds             My voice is garbled and unsure of itself.

(but here’s verse one.)

And now my hair’s all messed up and I’m thinking of shaving it

and my parents say I’m a train wreck just waiting to happen

but at least this image tattoos itself into y’all’s brains and it makes into a double.

(I really need braces--imagine if they were affordable.)

I question everything, the people on the street are in my head again,

the sun is a knife and it cuts through my skin again

and let’s let people see things I’ve tramp stamped to my skeleton,.

I long to make them understand but once you’ve past the age it’s not something you’ll

taste again. I’m glad for their sake, then.

I’d hate to make anyone uncomfortable.

Besides, seventeen tastes too much like bile.