Unjudged

        Hair that won’t stay defrizzled

         Playing cards with Mom

         Freckles spanning only the nose

         Something between a speech impediment and Minnesotan accent

         Loves a certain flaxen-haired pony more than any human

         Smell of barn lingering in every car

         Wears riding boots to the grocery store

         Butt grows before boobs

         Sausage fingers that get ice cold in sixty degrees

         Harbors an empathy for the one woman no one would judge me for hating

         Scared of other girls based on the art of subtle cruelty

         As-of-yet dormant maternal instincts

         Need my dad to keep helping me out financially

         Scribbles secret to-do notes for the distant future

         Intelligent vocabulary makes me better than everyone else

         Wants everyone to want me

         Strange affinity for teenage pop-punk music

Here

in poem

My most private thoughts

whether truth or lie or truth to a confused mind

capable of condemning me to shame

remain faithfully

unjudged.