Authenticity Means Unromanticized

Not awake at two to watch the shifting

clouds over constellations--

but turning and tossing with seething acid

rolling in my belly at the thought

of morning and settling in my desk chair

with deep purple filling in the depressions

under my eyes like ink

staining me sleepless.

Not a bright button nose red from winter wind

but rubbed raw and peeling

from emergency toilet paper

and tissues so rough they might as well

have been paper

and the constant fear the next sliver of liquid

draining down towards my mouth

won’t be clear like a slug’s trail

but bright red like Rudolph’s nose.

Not just the days when I bounce and hug and twirl into my father’s car

but the ones when I gasp I’m sorry I’m sorry

I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

for things I did and didn’t do

until my father’s impatient with apologies

and I ask forgiveness for my sorry’s,

gasps sending my clenched fists over my heart

chest heaving hair tangled and wet with stale tears

Not constant appreciation for a mother’s sacrifice

but also the eye rolls I suppress

when I’m too impatient for empathy

and every word out of her mouth

is deemed wrong without proper trial by jury

but never out loud

because authenticity also means

the way my words slur and tumble down the volume hill

none of them stretching for other’s ears

only leaping and falling flat

because why be heard when you could be wrong?

And it’s not the way I tell myself it is

when I repeat in my head, a constant mantra down bustling school hallways

of I don’t care anymore not since middle school

when I really still feel eyes

coming from under plucked, drawn-back eyebrows

on my back as I shuffle to class in a sweater

whose sleeves feel too short

just like they always did back then.