Ilana

16

Sea Foam

And every time I tell you I’m horrible you laugh
and say I don’t know how to be
but I promise,
I’ve watched wood burn and the sun fall
and I’ve smiled at the carnage,
and pretended that life was simple
and that things happened and if we moved on they didn’t
hurt us, couldn’t
hurt us-
these arrows flung from the back of classrooms
and locker rooms, and our locked rooms
where we learned to muffle ourselves
and how to breathe so we could pass out,
and not think or not feel
because they’re the same for us
writers and artists and anyone
with ink-stained hands and bag-tired eyes,
we’re all horrible-
murderers and thieves and cowards
(oh my)
we’ll run away from crime scenes
and write our testimony in black ink
just to wring it from our hands,
like that makes us better
like that makes us forgiven-
can we forgive ourselves
these summer nights
and sand art
and the taste of salt water
that we dripped into our notebooks
an hour later
like it belonged to someone else,
like it was another’s
heart and soul and sopping shoes,
but I don’t know how
to forget the girl in the notebook
or to look in the mirror
and see the pale girl
with all her ink dripping out
still spilling down her legs
and over her shoulders
and not reconcile the two-
but you can and you do
and I hate it and I hate it
and I’m horrible
and thank you
for not believing me.