I do not get to leave dirt under my fingernails anymore because I am not a child and I am not given time to play in the dirt for thirty minutes every day. I do not sit outside in the driveway digging holes, rolling fat, pink, brown, and yellow worms between my own fat, young fingers. There are bugs from the dirt which I let into my body at age five when I rubbed on my eyes vigorously and they lived underneath my skin for a while.
they excrete waste which comes out of my eyes
every morning
i scrape it out of the pink parts which are itchy from the bugs crawling
all night
is difficult to sleep through because my skin and scalp tickle like never
before
when i had a case of lice i wondered how i got it from
nobody
was able to tell me what to do because
they didn't know
I would be stuck with bugs
living in my body for the rest of my goddamn
life
is tiring when you want it to be shorter
Let me wear my hat and plant strawberries this summer and pumpkins in the winter; neither fruits will make it through the seasons, but I will be so happy I promise you. I am so full of adventure, I like to get sand in the toe box of any shoe, I like to imagine I can climb a tree, I like to think about setting leaves on fire with Brendan and Jean Luc and Mary, I like to see the black squiggly worms that live in our sky when I look at the sun for a little too long. I am content to continue seeing.
Did you know I still like to collect buttons and put them in my special cookie tin and sometimes I dare to sew them onto shirts I find someone wanted to throw away?
This time around I will plant seeds where they are not necessarily wanted. I will put a tree in my windowless classroom and watch it grow quickly. Trees like to hear things like talking and laughing and living. I can find the will in my body to make the bugs inside obey me this time.