きれいな

Now that you’ve left high school, you’re useless hands and sneezing fits and exhausted all the time. (You’re trying very hard not to hate yourself anymore, but your thighs are making it difficult.) After all that fight, you stand in the messy leftovers of your grandparents’ house, your legs sunburnt holy ground, and you are ashamed of the body they have given you.  You are ashamed of every little thing you’ve done,  four years after chopping off all your hair in eighth grade, because it made their mouths bend down,  like church-goers — praying that you’d change. And there are never enough poems to apologize for being born the way you are. No matter what, all those words, it will always come back to this — you’ve spent the best years of your life building monuments to people who never made you feel like you were good enough. (And I’m sorry about your parents and I’m sorry  about the mess and I’m sorry that nothing’s changed and now you’re twice as empty as before.) You’re tripping out of high school with bruises on your lips. (Whatever it is you’ve ended up with, I’m sure you deserve better.)