Your eyes are like the moon, but no expanse of sky can make them seem anything but small and far away, and you hate that. Your lips are like thin waves of Pepto-Bismol when you wear lipstick, and like two peach halves when you don't. Your nose doesn't fit you. You wear crosses in your ears that hit your collarbones when you walk, to show everyone who you are. You're comfortable with your religion, but not your orientation. Which way are you going? Toward the boys who notice your behind, or toward me, who notices your smile?

Stop whitening your teeth. Your mouth is already home to pearls, your fingers painted until they shine like opals.

You are a gem. You are a precious metal. I want to wrap you in a Tiffany-blue box with a ribbon white as your skin and gift you to my fondest memories. I want to hold your hand, because even though I can fit mine and a half in your palm, I never feel safer than when your permanent Diet Coke tremor reverberates down my spine.

Please let me plait your hair in thick braids down your back. I promise I'll cover up the patch that fell out in eighth grade when your diet consisted of nothing but breadcrumbs and sadness. I used to call you the Atlantic Ocean, but now you're just the tears in the corners of my eyes. I cannot share your tide with the world, just trap you in my eyelids and keep them squeezed shut so you can't leave me. I would never blink again if it meant I could keep you forever.