Some days I wake up angry
Bent over from loneliness
Isolation pulsing in-between my hard pressed lips
And all I can remember of my life are disappointments
Every good deed
Every miracle washed away
And the color of the sky
No matter how bright blue remains gray
Head tosses ideas around like a game of croquet
As women waiting for the train look right through me
I pretend they’ve recognized me
This must be how it feels to be famous
People whispering your name like a punch line
Everyone knows you, but doesn’t really know you at all
My heart beats like a pebble is stuck in it’s shoe
Glittering fans cry out for poems of politics and war
Poems that will hit the edges of their teeth so hard
They’ll have to swallow it down
And ingest change without their consent
But, really I’m a pacifist
Whose existence has been brimming
with politics of race, of men, of women, religion and gender
From the moment I could string sentences together
Each movement made a contradiction to the social norm
The pretty boxes they put me in
The pinky tails I wore
The skinned knees that wrecked my tights
but made me feel proud and strong
That was my pledge of allegiance
That Daddy squashed
each time he gave me the belt
Told me I wasn’t good enough

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