Blue inked fingers kiss innocent paper, staining the edges with my fingerprints. It’s a mess by the time I’m done, the virgin paper massacred by rivers of words running in the confines of the margins when I ran out of room and coffee ring halos branded into the top of the page. To anyone else it would be a mess but to me

It’s art

It’s art you wouldn’t understand.

You don’t believe in words, in the effect they can have on your heart, shaping it and turning it into someone you don’t recognize but at the same time

has always been inside you

How could you understand? It’s not like your hands have ever held anything other than an assignment that was forced out of you by the promise of a letter on the corner of the page.

If I told you about ink stained fingers and rivers of words, you would stare at me blankly or even worse use the words you could have used to create worlds to make me feel this big.

I am like you

At least I pretend I am.

When I’m with people like you, I hold onto my phone that is identical to theirs and whisper rumors and lies I have heard into their ears that burn my tongue but it makes me fit into their clique

Even if it hurts someone else

No one said survival was easy

But don’t look behind the curtain because you might not see a Barbie doll like you but rather innocent papers that kissed blue stained fingers I pretend are not my own.