i am not the girl who wins.
in the humid days where we sit around the table at my grandparents house and play cribbage,
i am not the girl who wins.
even in the games of hide and seek i love so dearly,
played in between meals in summer afternoons,
i am not the girl who wins.
“your little sister is a firecracker”
they say
can they see how they break my heart with those words?
“your little sister is trouble” they say
and there is love in their eyes and they look at her like she’s the sun
yes, she’s a firecracker, maybe
but i always thought i had fire in my veins, too.
and my little sister beats my father in board games
and i’m not the girl who wins.
and maybe it is this that is the foundation of the melancholy that has settled so deep in my soul it got stuck and now won’t come out.
when it rains i think yes- come cleanse me, soak down, down, down
into the rotten bone.
make me clean.
because i am not the girl who wins.
people shake they’re head and me and say
“you always were such a quiet girl, always dreaming”
and yet it is said as an insult,
something made to burn
and they turn from me as if i bore them,
because i am not the girl who wins.
by the warm fire with la vie en rose playing a room away,
my father's sisters are drinking hot chocolate.
my mouth is frozen shut.
i want to make them laugh and tell me i'm wicked
but
their eyes glaze over when they look toward me,
with my head in the clouds and my mouth too heavy to open.
and for years
for years
i have been hidden behind the old linen couch in my grandmother's house
begging for people to take another look
to come and see
"look at me," i want to say, "i am also a fire"
and our world loves the glittering people,
but i am not the girl who wins.

We are that which hashes
    her

That which expends her swirling muscled tones

That which chisel at
this four-by-four;
her cedar

      a vessel desecrated.

We are terse,
we are pixels projecting this
    dance—

Her steady plateau
Her watery eyes

the process of healing is a strange,
shy thing.
it sneaks up on you slowly,
honey coating the tongue,
nectar dripping from the lips like blood upon the pavement.
and at first, you step away from it,
you are not used to being handled gently,
and the memory of cuts and scrapes is far too harsh against your mind.
but it starts slow,
first in the smiles stolen from secret glances,
then the swell of your chest when you realize that anger no longer makes a home in your heart,
and healing finally breaks through the
rough, blackened stitches of your heart
when you see the morning sun against the pale purple sunrise,
and you think
"there i am."
it is the first time you feel safe.