And Then She Woke

Feeling irrelevant, and not knowing why.




Do you know the texture of
hope?
Sliding through your fingers,
it leaves a residue of
guilt,
a picture-perfect trail of proof
that once
you were better
than you've grown to be:
stunted and withered,
allowing flaws to scar and mar
instead of adding character.

Scuffed boots, dirty blue-and-purple knees,
swollen scratches covering
arms and well-worn fingers:
an image,
an icon
in my own mind;
but the cameras
are only in my head.

Where is my recognition?

What have I done to deserve it?

There were
plans,
dreaming big, schemes,
even a theme song,
imagined drive-by slow-wave,
slow-motion wind-blown hair strands
never catching in my lip ring
like they do in real life.
And the movies never show the morning-after taste
of dirty sunshine and how
fantasies fulfilled leave you feeling
empty.