outside of the window
The sun is shining so far above me
The crisp, sunken streams of light falling upon me
Bursting on my cheeks as warmth
Bursting in my eyes as light
Making them golden
Touch the rain with my tongue
Let it roll around
Straight from the river
Up into the clouds
Vaporized
Liberty gave me the right
To feel this rain on my back
To feel this sun hit my eyes
To be this nature
And surprise
The very world around me
And let them see my vanity, beauty, my tendencies
Before I knew this world anew
Before the sun could even whisper hello
Before I knew passion
Before the words, the love, or the feeling
Of being alive
I was closed in
Criss-cross tears across my face
My head drenched in a mental disability
They told me what I could not be
They took away my stability
Before I even knew the real me
Criss-cross tears in my eyes
As I realized this body was not a prize
I threw away my face in a dream
To reveal nothing on my mental stability’s screen
I screamed
Because this is no facade
I am thawed and well jawed
Thick Jewish nose they loved to laugh at
Wisps of hair on the sides of my face they took to be masculine
To them I was a man
And it affected me and they took control of my mind because they can
You cannot understand
Because I was just a little girl
Stuck in this click-clack whirl
Of hell on a playground
Criss-crossed, fucked up mind
The little girl who wasn’t supposed to read past grade level
The little girl who was called the devil because of this nose
And these eyes and this dark brown hair
The little girl who was never liked by the teachers
Who was a nuisance and a target to others
Who was nothing
And then I saw the window.
And I realized my eyes were glazed
By the haze of the fog on the glass
And I realized
I just needed to wipe it away
Like a spill on the wood floor
I just needed to lift this off my chest
Forget the rest
And look
outside
The sun sheared my eyes
Burned my skin
I could not look at first
I tried again
And it hurt worse
The bullies, teachers, and doctors
Kept telling me to come back to the darkness
They callled,
“You’ll hurt yourself!”
“Your mind cannot understand what you will see!”
“You can’t look out there, you’re so stupid.”
I took my eyes
And stretched them open wide
Searched for the pain to hit me once again
But then I realized it was just a surmise
To the judgement I was afraid of
When I actually found out how to look
I saw Beauty out the window
Naked, curvaceous, and brilliant
I pushed against the glass
The room was filled with a blast
Of the ugly voices again
Chucking my heart into my ribcage like a pin
I could not begin
To tell you the screams they screamed at me
As I pushed the glass keeping me from the realest beauty I’ve ever seen
Please, please let me out
Beauty playing with the fire in my heart
My eyes strain to see her but all I see are the shouts
LET ME OUT
LET ME OUT
LET ME OUT
I fell out of the window
Into the grass
Turned red
And I realized the red was flowing from my arms softly
I cried quietly
As Beauty came down to me
But when she touched upon me
My soul was complete
And the past was obsolete
I realized
I had to bleed
I had to catch Beauty
While she fought for me
I became like the words I loved so much
In those books that I touched
And in turn they caressed me
And, too, I was the glass
But that old me has crashed
And now I am what I saw beyond the old pages
Past the black ink
Past the language
And right in the heart of the art
I had to look outside
Break outside
Love outside
Throw everything outside
Be the outside
Of the window