there’s this feeling. I’m not sure if there’s a word for it / english is funny that way, breaking & entering into homes it’s already burned down, demanding to be swallowed / it lives here now, on my tongue, a parasite. but I’m not sure if there’s a word for it. this feeling that I get like when you’ve been inside for too long / & then you step outside & somehow when you weren’t looking winter had finally gone home to rest / the sun is out / it trickles down your chin / & it’s like the first time you ever felt a girl’s lips on your neck & suddenly everything smelled like honey

that feeling
do you know it?

I’ve decided to make it my life’s work
to s w i m in it

because I am so / so / so / so tired. of carrying the world on my back / even though I wasn’t the one that strapped it there & god forbid / I tell anyone my spine can’t take it anymore. when they teach you about poisons / they give you that sheet of green-faced stickers to run around with, marking every deadly bottle in your house / T O X I C / I found a sheet of those stickers the other day / I put them everywhere. on every part of my body & on the television screen & on my mother’s hand when she wasn’t looking & my room is covered with them now it’s like a nuclear plant in there / but what I was saying was. they teach you about cyanide but not about cynicism. about how you might be born into a body that has already lived seven centuries & been killed for seven centuries & they say your earliest memories are usually from around the age of two but you might be born into a body already full to bursting & the only way to stop the leak is to build yourself an armor / you’re eight years old & you’ve stitched yourself an outer shell made of burrs & pinecones. you’re ten years old & you stop smiling as much because you have sensitive teeth / you’re fifteen years old & you take to hiding in dark corners because better to walk there at your own pace than wait to be shoved—

I have been inside for too long
I deserve to see the sun

can I please just take this off my back?

 I want to lie down I want the earth to carry me instead I want grass poking up between my fingers between my thighs just me & the grass sharing the sunlight

I want to learn photosynthesis
I’ve decided that’s how I want to spend my time

what I mean is there are only so many hours in the day & I don’t have to give mine up to anyone. stop asking me to justify the way I walk / with my spine straight from core to skyline / I walk this way because I deserve it / I walk this way because I am on a mission / & everything else is nothing but a distraction. I have finally picked all of the burrs out of my hair & I will never make myself a crown of thorns again because I deserve to smell like honey. this is my manifesto. my revolution will be sticky sweet. my revolution will be the soft caress of the sun on my skin. my revolution will be covered in yellow-faced stickers / J O Y / from sole to temple

that feeling

I’ve decided to make it my life’s work