I begin with a universal statement: Growing up sucks.

being caught in the in between sucks in a lot of ways, 

and everyone has dipped their toe in the primordial pool of puberty

has walked those halls and coveted scented markers

felt their voice crack

failed classes

outgrew beds

changed homes

seen ourselves bleed

we survive.

we carry what we can

we forget to throw out those old shoes

we remember.

I remember

On a very specific corner in a specific street near the house with a fence like dog's teeth

you would ride past

I was thirteen

I walked 

you yelled out 

those things that we've heard in subway stops and off corners

"hey let us I bet you would baby don't get all"

most people keep walking

I kept walking until I got home and sat down on the floor and cried

i could tell you something about shock

but it was because I he was a boy with that iced tea kind of smile and 

and what I dreamed would be pretty

tore me to shreds.

As if they could make my own body

more scary to me than it already was. 

and on those days

everything was ugly and hot as sin

I don't feel cool much anymore.

When I was 15 I had played

2 mothers and a maid in my acting career.

and I sought blame again in thighs arms legs face

for being the way it was

because bodies 

turn people into women before they have a chance to be a child

Mothers and maids are never main characters 

They are the caretakers

They will always be the footnote on someone else's happy ending

and let me tell you 

no one wants to take a side note to the school dance

theory tells me I can't define myself by others but

I cannot help but be the product of the soil i am grown from and

having pesticide poured on your roots 

because you grew like a weed

hurts more than I have ever found the words to say

hearing whispers in the halls when I dress like the teenager I feel like inside 

instead of the pillar of strength I have come to be

hurts in a way that only people 

who have doubts that they should exist can understand

because when you see him

you feel like he's got his hand out the window of a car and 

your cheek is the air he is slapping 

and he doesn't hit the brakes

he doesn't hit anything

because there's nothing there

he was skinnier than my hips but bigger than the strength i had left

and whenever my legs don't quite fit in a desk

my first instinct is to say

I'm sorry.

I don't want to be your amazon,

your queen, your mother figure, your oak tree

I just want to grow up

to be a person

to be me.