For Dannie

There's a disbelief in your mind
and an empty shock in your heart
like the hollow of a rubber band from the little bit of 6th grade you'll remember.
Flip flop hopscotching, blowing fear into your bubble gum
when hamsters made of electricity scurry through your veins;
that feeling you're not supposed to get,
sunday school songs breathing down your neck
I know.
I was there through the worst of it.
when the paper was the only one safe enough to talk to
but you'd never let it listen,
green bruises on your arms
and deep purple ones on your soul.
They've been draining you since you were old enough to understand.
Little girl, look at me.
We were never meant for half-stitch strangle,
breaking necklaces in tenth hearted attempts,
using Tylenol as God repellent.
It's hard to OD on the recommended dose.
You're drugged up on their words of hate for salvation's sake
to make you believe that freaks like us in between
aren't supposed to exist
aren't supposed to be seen,
say she's not in your plans, say it's all in His hands-
I'm here to tell you that your pastor is only a man,
so don't make him give your eulogy yet.
I've had enough of funerals.
Is it weird that the flowers of all things make me sad?
We cut them up and killed them to have something beautiful.
Can't you see how often we cut our children up to have something beautiful?
That girl in the casket was already beautiful
but they told her to be someone else,
pink glitter lip gloss and as little fabric as possible
"If she doesn't fit in the vase, just chop the ends off
and soak her in some miracle grow; she'll be fine."
It's hard to breathe with your face under water.
For now we have to learn to be fish with no gills,
float belly up, play dead so they don't catch us knowing what alive is.
Goldfish funeral in a bathroom stall,
but baby, no matter how many times they try to flush you away
with divine lies,
you can still come up sputtering,
I've seen it.
Just like you did every summer in your grandparents' pool.
Their backyard smelled like cigarettes and chlorine.
It still does.
They love you anyway.
You don't know it yet, but you don't have to give up
the handprints on your mother's back steps.
There's something about concrete that doesn't give up on love so easily.
Five years down and eons to go,
You'll be heart whisper eavesdropping,
painting pictures for the story of who you will become.
Five years from now,
you'll be peddling your fixed gear
and never looking back
on these spirit gallows
except to see how far you've come.
I know that number scares you now
but trust me,
This isn't anything to give up over.
You live to decide to be you.