ramblings of a teenage mermaid

my nail polish is chipped.

“i’m lost.”

i guess it’s chipped because i always have to chew and bite and taste until i draw blood

in my notebook during school, chewing on mr. laramee’s words about particle-wave duality, smiling because i’m always a particle, i’m always steady and calm and

if you were a scientist, you could study my steady position for days because i’m always solid and so sure

(you have to be when you’re the only mother your sisters your kids know)

but if you were a psychologist, you’d tell me that i only pretend to be a particle to save their husks

of corn, the ones they play with because i can’t afford toys, to salvage their shells

that we collected with mom on a shitty day at seaside heights before she died.

friday nights, when my kids are out with their friends, i lay on your chest and recite poetry and become drunk on the cosmic nothingness that you hide in a bottle under your bed and i cry

when kids at school call me a heartbreaker, the girl who can’t be moved, the girl who’s colder than the ice she chews on, and i smile

when you make me want to be a wave, to forget about the past and fall in love

with the promise the future reeks of, with the bleach that drips from your skin and i guess i’d pick the moment i realized i had particle-wave duality as the moment that i fell in love with

“no, i don’t mean i’m lost in this fuckin city with these stupid people. i just mean i’m lost. i’m lost because i’ve lost”

define home (n.) wherever wolves’ teeth prickle my skin, burying my lungs in could’ve beens and maybes.

the girl was oh so delicate and the boy was sweeter than sugar and she woke up at noon, fell asleep far past midnight so she could stop crying over her could’ve been, her maybe, her Jaime;

they bathe in silvery scraps of stars, dodge wolves after burying familiar faces in rosy wooden coffins and dirt burdened with earthworm larvae;

sickened by the death of stars, she swallows ice cubes whole and laughs when peppermint burns her throat;

and soon she admits defeat, and soon he admits retreat;

even when fingers shake, they can still let go of a dead girl and hold on to a dying boy;

and in time, with will stronger than any metal, she stopped licking glass to taste blood; she started licking wounds instead;

and at the beginning of the universe, there was you and me.

you always knew gumballs would break your jaw and

goddamn, they do and damn, you always knew that the pink and blue stains left on your teeth were as permanent as her death and

adjustment is never easy for anyone, not even for a princess.

eyes take a while to adjust to sudden darkness, bodies take a while to adjust to sudden pain, galaxies take a while to adjust to the sudden absence of light and

queen of too late, missus, empress, mistress, little miss, little princess.

little princess, hop from pebbles, hop from word to word, just try not to drown in mommy’s mouth

and little miss, escape the tempting wine crawling out of her throat, the robotic “yes,” the guttural “no,” the haunting “i don’t give a”

damn, you’re his mistress, you orgasm and growl when he touches your tattered wings, uneasy at first, empowered at second, a shell of a man at third as you start to sink

and now, empress, the fruity little drinks, the innocent white drugs, the adorable little knives and shotguns you surround yourself with kill you much faster than water. but the second you ran out of bullets, the second you sank to the bottom was the second you started to float

so, look now, missus, you married a nice man who notices the curve of your dimples, the apples shriveling in your eyes. you finally stopped putting up, sitting up, shutting up. you touched your tongue and you danced on its rosy grains and you spoke without water clouding your lungs

so, my queen, next time you question why do i care, why don’t i slip, why don’t i die, you look at your little anabel’s blanket, and you refuse to let her wings break, to let her head slip under an icy lake and you

1. find your moment.

2. ex-hale hollow iron. i n h a l e cosmic kisses and memorize his lips, tastier than newborn strawberries.

3. wear crops dresses and cupcake dresses if they make you happy. wear cleats and daddy’s old jersey if they make you happy.

more importantly, don’t dress for mom or him or that vapid, beloved, endlessly-popular girl in English class.

dress for you.

4. take 15 minutes every day to remind yourself of your triumphs, to think about your tragedies, to ruin your mascara and wonder why children, parents, people die.

then, take 1425 minutes to breathe.

5. high school is not the end. it is your personal beginning.

treat it like a kiddie pool, not the atlantic ocean.

6. it takes so long to rebuild your home after a tornado steals it from you.

remember, baby, that you are stronger than any disaster, natural or otherwise, because you survived without tearing others down.

7. fuck girls. fuck guys. fuck whoever you want, and tell anyone to tells you otherwise to fuck off.

8. after 64 years, i’ve seen a certain contentment in sadness and an indescribable pain in happiness, so

assume nothing about others.

9. accept yourself for your dumb quirks, your curly hair, the way you squeal before you get out of bed in the morning. if you don’t, nobody else will.

10. you’re not weak because you cried every night after daddy died.

you are strong.

11. how will you know when you have your moment?

baby doll, your moment happens the second when stomachs push out and lungs b r e a t h e in and you stop

and you look at them

and you realize that this isn’t perfect, this isn’t what i always dreamed about,

but it’s home.

12. i love you. quite a lot, actually. if i didn’t, i wouldn’t have raised you for 15 years.

if i didn’t, i wouldn’t be setting you free, letting you dodge the wolves, date the demons, and befriend fairies after 15 years.

13. good luck.

14. talk to me. please, to ease my aching heart and pounding bones.

i saw her today.

the girl who stole jaime’s face.

the freckle on the tip of her nose, the curvature of her neck, the melodious laugh coming out of an imposter’s mouth.

she wore goddamned braces, even, and her eyes burned like the depths of heaven

and she wore a backpack with stars on it.

sometimes, my palms itch when i hear their ugly psalms in church, their false truths,

their hollow “good people don’t die”s.

i hate you for reminding me, i hate myself for caring, i hate her for dying,

for burning the last time i saw her alive in to my brain,

for burning her unborn face under neath my nails.

sometimes, my palms itch and i cry and i pretend that her bones turned

into dust, hopping like a pinball between stars and galaxies and living again.

i hate you, i hate you, i hate you.

sometimes, i remember her polished lips, then the car that cracked her hips, then the marble stone she lives under, and

sometimes, i hate this nauseating cycle we’re thrown in to, and

the first time, i feel like everything.

i feel like i’m the golden spines stuck on dusty shelves, i feel like i’m the golden ringlets stuck on an innocent’s head, i feel like i’m fitzgerald’s golden girl, i feel like you’re my golden boy,

and everything is ugly.

the second time, i feel like nothing.

i feel like i’m the holes you knocked in your kingdom (your golden palace walls), i feel like i’m the shrimp shredded in seine nets, i feel like i’m the hollow sea cursed to drift endlessly to you,

and nothing is beautiful.

the third time, i feel like my body is a forest, like you’re the wildfire devouring it.

and then i feel like i’m cooling my eyes with your crimson touch, and then i feel like i’m staring at a bulb so long my eyes are burnt orange,

and then, i cry

and then, i stop and i rub my wrists and i realize that wildfires, that you, don’t care about soothing the burns you put on them

and then, i realize i still love you oh so much.

(the everything i feel for you is ugly and the nothing you feel for me is beautiful.)

the fourth time, i apologize

have you ever noticed that under it all, we’re all red?

our skin is stained crimson like a tattoo that bleeds colors we never saw before, the colors we never asked for.

have you ever noticed that under it all, we all have our stories, tucked away behind our left ribcage, fluttering with battered wings, begging for an escape?

our lungs spit up black bile because of the voice in our minds that screams for us to speak, the voice we slaughtered after someone broke us.

have you ever noticed that artists and painters and writers and poets, that we exist between two worlds, one of earth and one of omniscience behind a curtain god closed since eve and her adam?

my hands finally rip off the tape society placed on my mouth, on my heart, after it told me I am i, an unimportant kid, one of 7 billion, a thoughtless clone.

have you ever noticed that under it all, after we break rusty chains, we’re all white,