26

Nobody gets me. 

It’s hard to say without thick eyeliner 

and an evanescence CD

but unless I actually write some of the bullshit down 

I will fall into an aisle of Hot Topic.  

it started with a number.

26.

it was going to be lucky. 

I was lucky 

admitted to a small program

26 classmates

26 friends

26 clovered lifeboats running on rabbits feet

it didn't add up

Admissions took in 29 my year

I dove outward

out pressing hot horseshoes across my neck

the Canadian - a unapologetic bitch like me

She called me up, down, her best friend

the Indian, soft like thread 

stitched wounds together with frizzy hair

the other Jewish girl liked my headbands 

said they were characteristic

I’ve worn them constantly since

braided my forehead with flowers

swinging hippie hips across my wardrobe

dancing through florals and fringe

The Christian asked too many questions

built a vault of secrets

I smudged insecurities between his cracks

too busy to detect

the Braille lining

silence shouting he was not a safe

The Tattooed was everything I wanted

I wanted to be her, 

wanted to live in her colorful skin

watching her ink galaxies into paper

inscribing each body had a universe inside it

The Boy Who Hated His Skin ate matches and wrote fire

The Ginger upheaved strings of sentences

The Pushover gave out sips of anesthesia

The Giant turned me inside out, 

let my blood taste oxygen

The Joker was serious

commanding me to swallow sea water

evaporate the words he didn't like on paper

One was from Los Angeles, so we lunched. 

Multiple times a day. 

I was honest again.

I was honest to everyone. 

handed out pieces they never gave back 

learned hanging out with someone does not make them your friend

it makes you a nibbled dress

a decision to wear out

outside or

out flesh and mind

donating used stories

The Flamboyant dropped out of college after one semester. 

28.

The Indian said 

Canadian and I were not bitching on the same side. 

we should go maple free

we should go away

out

out of the ground ceilings we knew

she changed me

Then best friends. 

Then her major.

27.

The Giant made me small. 

I fell into his pores, under his skin

he called me a contagious rash. 

then lifeboats fled

rowing into smaller streams with thick tides

I couldn't burrow through

but we were going to write, party, grow--

They hated my writing

mouths became shredders.

was it my fault for being paper thin?

They threw parties. 

I was not invited.

I was chopped down 

reduced to twigs

made for charring

The Tattooed chose the other Jewish girl, 

moisturized the Boy Who Hated his Skin.

the Christian stayed with the Canadian. 

comedy writers are only in it for the laugh

you don't fight when you can only throw punchlines

Los Angeles lunched without me 

Ginger died her hair. 

Pushover pushed back.

Drummer rolled his eyes. 

I did not leave my program

But my class was 

26.

Turns out some lifeboats ask you

To anchor yourself with apologies

buoyancy is not standardized

drowning called to me

begged for my blood 
but I ran towards a fresh vein

off shore to The Quiet Stranger 

a fresh jeaned shrub who grew on everyone. 

We walked the same path from separate directions. 

met at the middle.

she admitted they didn’t understand me

so refused to stand me at all

Yes I shot cannons

but love is fire

the breath of war

My lucky number never became 26.

It stayed 11.

I was born 11/28, my sister 11/11. 

one, doubled

one biopsy

one reflection for a freshly polished glass

I'm not playing Evanescence 

I’m jamming to (2002) Avril Lavigne. 

lonely beats

beating on

not beating up

pumping blood through flesh

floating through it's own stream

But why do you have to go and make things so complicated?