I am “double tap”

and “R.T” at two

in the morning

on a school night.

 

I am hallways

teaching survival

of the prettiest,

preaching “Ow ow!”

and “Get over here, sexy!”

 

I am the fifteen year old boy

shoving blunts in between

his small lips,

 

forcing smoke into his lungs

as he chokes

with a smirk.

 

I am

the little girl

standing in her bathtub

shaking her bleeding wrists,

 

I am the sinews

of her mascara

and plasma

beading behind locked doors.

 

I am the wooden blocks

of a foreign alphabet,

chinking onto an apartment floor

as a child utters a broken translation,

speaking better English than his stay at home

mother and unemployed father.

 

I am the dog

whose ribs are valleys

in flaxen fur,

picking at the scraps

at which musky hands

and uncut hair

grasp at.

 

I am the seventeen year old

that hammered his parents to death

in florida,

remembering each time

they tried to stifle my love

for the boy next door,

 

I am the twelve year old girl

who slices her salad into fourths

and throws up the portion she decided

to eat;

 

who is waiting for her waistline

to reduce to an apple core

so she can impress the ruthless boys

hiding at school,

 

the boys who call her names

and teach her to hate

her own skin.

 

I am the single mom

who still lay awake at night

regretting leaving him,

 

because even though

he painted her with sallow bruises,

at least she was his art

and not someone else’s.

 

I am the struggle

for a president that

feels powerful in a dress,

and equal in a suit,

 

I am the clank of pepper spray

on keyrings down a dark alley,

 

the sunken eyes of children

who are not yet old enough to have been in love.

 

I am an eagle

burning to ashes,

backgrounded

by fifty stars

and thirteen stripes.