Cramped in the corners of my crisising cranium,
I cringe,
I creak,
I forget my own value again,
forget my own name again.
There are fifteen days of every month that I am not myself
and therefore
I am still myself but a part of me I prefer not to present,
presently
I am learning to stop divorcing my dark parts from the rest of me-
but to color match them instead,
to meet them where they’re at.
(they may not pay rent but they still live here).
I still am here.
this has been a life’s work.
this has been my work.
this has been what womanhood means to me.
this is learning to love myself at nearly three decades young.
this is you watching me
as I crush my crooked into crisp
into crystal,
into christmas morning.
this is me wishing you would tell me
I am not too much
while I am telling you endless
reasons why I am way too much-
cut me off
to keep me on track.
I am a train who does not know her own trajectory
sometimes
or the weight of her worth sometimes.
so I sit here trying to trace my tremors
to traverse my trite
and my tragic.
I do not call it beautiful.
I do not wish you to call it beautiful.
let us not romanticize this
but let us not run from it,
either.