How the Wild Became

Part I: Childhood

A Star

My crooked edges never seemed to fit

with everyone else’s puzzle pieces in my head.

I refused to paint dragons

on the humid canvas of playground air.

Fairies did dance in the boxes of my mind,

not allowed to escape for fear

they wouldn’t look like the other girls’ fairies.

Boys never had cooties. They were the ones

whose mouths were too small to

vomit “you’re not my friend anymore”

and their ears perfectly huge to listen to friendship.

But my edges didn’t always fit there either.

When wallball and foursquare became stale saltines at the bottom of the box

and I suddenly grew girl cooties back,

one person stayed. The face of my childhood

is his happy blue eyes, white blond hair, and bright pink cheeks.

I would let my fairies and dragons soar with his

when no one else was there.

When I got a note of “I hate you’s” and “you’re not good enough’s”

and “you are the worst person I’ve ever met”

tossed at me by my BEST friend,

every toss broke the sound barrier with

late night tearful silence,

and made my world go quiet, black, alone, and depressed for years to come,

he was the pin prick of a star

enough to pull me back. A constant

in a sea of growing up too fast and never quite fitting the mold.

He was there,

to play couch cushion lava jumping,

to whittle wooden knives,

to do super hero and ewok makeup,

to build popsicle stick cities,

and to make me smile even when

the hot-glue blistered our fingers.

And when my little child insides felt like blistered fingers

and scraped knees

from the tearing words society and my friends

imprinted on my tender mind, invading

again and again and again,

my little brother protected me.

Part II: 

Found

Last time I stood here alone.

Today that empty five foot six inch by two square feet of air next to me

that has always had a decaying "reserved" sign plastered to it

just waiting for a friend, is filled. 

The first half in my High School marathon 

was shooting pain from my left knee up to my left hip,

an overtrained IT Band like piles of undone assignments.

This half is different. I'm running with

you and suddenly there is so many people

right with me.

The sweat clouds of runners lit by the lightning bolt sketched on each emptied gatorade cup.

Every night of PM to AM homework lit by a lock screen and message of "study party at 10"

Weekends of dank uphill tunnels but with music blasting 

along the way, never ending echos of smiles that escaped past gasps for clear air.

Coming out on top, splitting for the finish line sprint,

but that's ok becasue there's a fountain to play in, 

chocolate milk to be drunk, and people to reunite with waiting for me. 

And now I've learned, 

hills don't have to be run alone, 

and life doesn't have to be lived alone. 

Part III:

Living in the Wild

A part of the wild things of the world

found its way to my insides,

growing quickly like ember to flame,

creating who I am.

I don’t want to walk

when I can run.

Don't want to sled 

when I can ski. 

Don’t want to fade

when I’m supposed to be neon.

Sit down, shut up, conform.

No,

that’s not my life,

I am going to live

my life.

Not stuck spinning circles of week days to weekends looking for a fork in the road 

that never comes. 

Defying this system of life

where we aren’t allowed to live.

I will let you think what you like,

Because my reality

is only mine.

Time flows, the wild is tamed

for a moment, there’s the quiet of a blue sky of clouds,

Because rebelling against rebellion still makes a rebel.

And maybe the best color

is a medium of both neon and sky blue.