i.

i tame my curls with the heat of desperation, and curl my eyelashes with clarity. i let the pink rose petals {false security} dissolve on my tongue. i make a meal out of this. i spend the day braiding my silver veins into the roots of a sturdy oak tree. {feels secure, but temporary.} i inhale the same air as that damn tree and i stand my ground until it folds to my touch and lets me inhabit it. {fake, it feels fake.} i heave and saw until my escape plan is illuminated. the tree does not argue. i fall asleep from sprinting, my legs sighing and swaying, my knees threatening to decay. i curl up and decide that my body is my only hope for a home. {wrong.} i spend years running from my own two legs and my flimsy collarbones and my calloused shoulders. home is subjective. home is fake. home is lies built upon lies until it became a foundation for a house.
{my body is not home, my body was never home, my body will never be home.}

ii.

i’m fifteen. purple striped plastic burns my nasal cavities and the back of my throat. {foreign, it feels foreign.} i have friction burns lining the indents of my spine from the blue carpets. i stand in my paisley bra and stare at them, i stare at every inch of myself. i play doctor. i pretend that my kidneys and lungs and liver and heart can talk to me and tell me of the vandalism i do. {“humor me”, my lungs squeak.} the denial nails me straight through the heart, i swear i hear it scream. {my mind screams “no”, my body screams “necessity.”} war is declared between the disconnect between my body’s internal clock and my willpower. {my body rebels, my body rebels.} i wake up in a puddle of defiance. my nurse tells me, “it’s just vanilla.”

iii.

{my body/your body/home/the end/the beginning/vanilla/madness/fake/genuine/trust/love/lust}
it’s all subjective, i suppose.