Brown Rice

Waist-deep in brown-rice flour
I feel sort of proud of myself
For creating such delicious things
To wake up to the email
In my inbox is a notification
From my kinder-music teacher
Who says she hopes I pursue
A literary career
She likes my writing style
And I'm kind of anxious for Saturday
Both excited and nervous
All the same
But the weekend is beckoning me with
Cozy fall fingers and I
Can't wait to get there
In a couple of days

Nobody Else

That makes me shake my head,
You know
And then I scurry back to double-check myself
Just in case
Just in case
I could have elicited
The same response
But I tell myself as I'm
Clicking through
Making sure that I don't appear
As anything less than an
Imperfect best
An assurance comes over me that I don't
Have anybody to impress
That I don't have to please
Anybody but myself
And neither
Do you

So Pretty

He's so pretty
Sometimes
It kills me
Figuratively
He just looks so happy
Sometimes
In a picture
And I find a smile
Stretching wide
That is mine
It's a kneejerk reaction
An instinct
A response
That I can't slow down
Or stop
But I don't think
That it's wrong
And anyway,
Besides
It's not the same weight
That I used to allow it
To be

Dreading

Stubborn,
By nature
Sometimes I think I handle things
More maturely but
I dunno
I'm a biased
Person
Which by default
Makes me as
At fault

Open Windows

Such a nice admission
Takes me by surprise
I would have never guessed
Not once
The guy we see walk by
With groceries loading down his tread
(He abandoned driving a couple years back
Said he's healthier this way)
Sometimes stops and listens
To the piano as it plays
He asked of her today
Who does that?
And she said
Me
He said it's so refreshing
A nice change from the mundane
Rap people blast
From their car windows
He likes to hear it
He likes my music
And that makes me braver,
Somehow
More willing to play
With open windows
And sing
But I sing!
I said
Horrified
He liked it all the same

Grandeur

When I was younger I was
Romance-repressed
First kisses made me squirm
I felt uncomfortable
Writing them
Even in books that
Necessitated such a sweeping
Display of affection
When I was fourteen I was
Romance-obsessed
Every book had to have it
Testing boundaries
Each plot founding
On the fact that the two
Protagonists were in love
I myself thought
That I possibly was
When I was sixteen I was
Romance-distressed
He'd never love me back!
But at times I let myself go there
Pretending that he could
The short-haired girl in the mirror said
That he definitely should
If we, you know, met
Which would take some strings to pull
That weren't even dangling
In front of me
Yet
And now, at seventeen
I am romanced out
No, never had a boyfriend but
I'm just fine anyhow
I even was sort of surprised to realize
That my books don't center around
A girl finding her love
Nor do my poems; no, not as often
I'm not throwing in the towel
Oh, no
But
I have feminism now
And a confidence adapted
From the fact that I do not
Need validation or their eyes
And I am not so caught
Up
In the whole notion of it all
The flowers and the hearts
The kisses and the lingering hands
It's nice and all
But
Romance
Repressed
Obsessed
Distressed
Meet your new best friend
She's
Unimpressed
And I like this new version of
Me
Much better

Toss and Turn

Reverse insomniac
I could lie awake in my dreams for hours
Mulling over this and that
Picking apart the minute details
Pardoning the acute absence of fact
But every time I slip into that
Starry-eyed, unearthly place
Plotting everything I'll do
Right on down to whom my heart will meet
It doesn't seem so insurmountable
Not nearly the impressive feat
And so I stand at the bottom in wait
Biding my time til the moment I wake

Chance Meeting

Oh, I don't know
It's not that big of an
Issue for me
It's not something I'm grasping at
Trying to claim
I'm much more excited about Halloween
At this point than the chance
We'll run into one another again
That's fine and all, I mean
But it's not nearly what I want right now
Even though it used to be

I'll Admit

I said the other day
That I feel okay
About it now
I'm relieved
I truly am
I just deleted
You from my contacts
If I'm being true
Because I was keeping them
In case you ever
Wrote again
And I was poised for
Responding
But now I'm not waiting for your
Name to pop up
And now I'm not itching
To write you
To tell you something small
And now I don't lean over the screen
Because you don't know I have an iPhone
And now my heart doesn't beat so hard
Erratically
Because
I'm waiting and hoping that there's nothing wrong
That it didn't go
Absolutely wrong
Between us
But it did
And when you said what you said
Back to June
Communicated to
Me
My stomach dropped and I felt
The most unwanted feeling
But, you know, that was when I
Started to pick the pieces up
Started to finally be able to move on
Because I knew you didn't want to
And no matter what she says I know
We would've made good friends although
I can't help feeling like you ran
At the first sign of a conflict
And I can't help allowing you the benefit
Of the doubt in saying that
Yes, I kind of started it
Though it wasn't my intent
Just know
Just know that much at least
Just know that much at least for me
If there's any part of you that misses laughing
Like I do but it's not enough
To send me reeling into a stupor
To make it so incredibly hard to think
I miss you, yes I do
But not nearly like before
It's smaller and more bearable
Since writing this before
Would have reduced me to fumbling pieces
Maybe even tears
But don't be confused
My intention is clear
I've moved on
And within
The year

Where We Are

Ha
Laughing
Fistfuls of popcorn
Singing along
Unable to control our giggles
When it lights right up behind us
With the flashlights of a dozen phones
(and even a couple of lighters)
And I feel like we're the least crazy about them
In the entire room
But it's still fun to pretend we are
It's fun sitting here with you