OK

You ask, politely mainly out of concern--
Are you okay?

I turn and say I am fine.
Fine fine fine. Maybe even good.
Since recently I can convince myself of anything.

But whenever I see myself in a mirror
I see my mother staring back at me.

And whenever I see a man
That I may want and feel something
Anything for…one day—
My best friend is there:
Quicker, faster than me.

And I know I shouldn’t,
But I wonder, is it me?

I know I’m good though,
I have the basics down.
How to charm, how to please,
How to make someone love
Me is easy, but how to make
It last is a lesson, I must have
Missed.

All you see is smudged eyeliner,
A sarcastic girl whose lost,
with hair that becomes knotted when
It’s down, a girl who stumbles when
She talks, who slurs when she walks.

But if my father taught me anything,
It’s that there’s a reason for it all.

She is the one who sees her biggest
Imperfections the loudest and can’t
Figure out how to silence them all. She
Hears herself screaming inside and
Often, wants to hide when she finds
Herself around the ones who choose to
Only see a puncture wound they’d
Rather not find a solution to.

She always tells herself to cry later,
Later, later, later. Any time but now.
And sometimes when she is sitting alone
In a bathroom stale she says loudly—
Why doesn’t mine come with a pen?
If an artist is creating something new
Every minute, why isn’t every corner
Prepared with her necessities.

She wants to write, she needs to explain
That she’s not so cold hearted but scared
To be open to a real solution that will quiet
Her pain, that will stifle her silence that
Will reconnect her with the mind she may be losing.


--The worst part if it is,
Is that she reminds herself
That she could have had him
If she really wanted,

And she’ll be kicking herself
Tomorrow, not over too
Many beers, too many
Awkward moments, too many
People who don’t understand
But the moments before she
Closed her eyes before the sun,
She realizes her teeth and brush were left
Undone.