less cotton candy chemicals,
less whatever science calls the shit makes me smile
an hour wide for two weeks until there is nothing
but now.
There is nothing
now,
my lips, a tightrope, so good at their job-
they never bow.
This is my personal science.
It doesn’t feel good so I try to think of a situation
where it would,
where it may be more fitting for my flat lining.
I briefly imagine myself to be a boy
or something else that doesn’t get told to smile so much
and actually for a second it’s nice
to have permission to exist without emotions that benefit onlookers.
In fact, it is so nice
that I smile big enough
to blind the bullshit
for at least three minutes
which feels like an accomplishment
until it doesn’t
and I’m here haunting my own house like I ain’t got shit to lose or shit to do.
I’m here, making less sense
to boys, especially.
The boy I like leaves me
again
because of this but does not say it is because of this,
does not say that he is a dictionary who has run out of words to soothe me,
and run out of time to invent new ones.
I know some days I am an entire sunflower field and sometimes I am a singular and half-blossomed thing,
so wilted the glance is not what you expected it to be but I swear I water myself every day.
Some days, it just takes better than others and
some days I think about all the fields my former lovers have left to grow in,
thoughts about their growth take the place of pruning my own leaves.
I am no gardener but I am working on tending my soil.
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