Dear Girls Like Me,

Dear Girls Like Me,

I was fine till the moment I let my eyes close for too long

It was in the cereal aisle.

When light hit my eyes again, it was all wrong

But it was too late. The cereal was here-a foot-a mile.

Everything little thing is cereal when you think about it

Failure. Doubt. Money. Anger.

Loss. Appearance. Fear. Intelligence.

Rejection. Love. Cereal.

They can all eat you.

My fingertips shakes as my knees give out

The floor is much warmer than I had thought

The lights of the grocery flickers with doubt

I looked at the cereal, finally caught.

No little thing is actually cereal.

Cereal is what I call something I want to make less

I say it’s fine-It’s just cereal.

What can cereal do to me?

The cereal got me this time when I remembered the date.

I had been -not rejected- deferred from my dream college.

My parents were -not disappointed- disappointed

My friends were -not smug- smug

I was -not thrown from my feet- thrown from my feet

Everything was off balanced.

I push it to the back of my mind.

I tell myself that I am stronger than silly cereal.

I can crush cereal beneath my feet and get stronger from my battles

And laugh later as I recount my conquest.

That’s not how cereal works, though.

Everytime I say this is the last time I will cry over this box of cereal

I am lying.

I will cry more over that cereal and the other cereal that follows.

Cereal has scarred me before

It will scar me again.

When I finally crawl out of the aisle, my nails are bloody

The tiles were brick when I dragged myself away

I pull myself up against the wall like puddy

That would finish my shopping for a day.

I don’t know how to beat cereal.

Or if it is possible.

I just keep going to the grocery and walking through its aisle.

The cereal will come back as it always does

And maybe one day I will eat the cereal.