JUNIE.

growing pains

mixing our bruises while we sit on the steps to your growing pains. your lips are numb even though you haven't spoke a word, your peachy cheeks that turn blue soon and we're holding onto nothing but these cold grounds.

young negro who cries because he can't figure out why everyone tells him he'll end up like his daddy. his daddy wasn't a failure, his daddy just didn't know how to carry around the crimson scratches and eager touches.

i'm not a prize, i'm a woman. i don't need someone to appreciate me because i've already told myself i'm breathtaking millions of times when you weren't there to tell me. keep my slanted eyes on life and getting a year closer to dying.

i'm spilling my venom on your fingertips that are smothered in salt and sugar, too bittersweet. your the next to find out life isn't enjoyable, its hell within a mask.

i found god within myself. i'm sitting on this ground where my sins run around me and i'm getting dizzy, but i'm taken over by the fact that this is my reality. i'm a living sin.

i don't know how to feel. these past days it feels like i'm not even existing. am i talking to my reflection now or am i talking to you, who vanished? i'm not a bird, i'm not a crane, i'm just the wind.

BREATHE
ME IN AND
TELL ME
HOW I
FEEL IN
YOUR LUNGS.

FEEL
DONT
FORGET.

show me youth, show me blooming. show me how to take these thorns and turn them into stems.

SHOW ME
YOUR HEAVEN.

am i preaching what i was taught yet? am i expressing enough for you to feel this grief and the well being of me? am i enough for you to grasp onto before i reach my supernova?

CALM DOWN
AND BREATHE.

i'll pray and pray until my heart swells up from the disappointment of unanswered prays and i can't feel my toes. i'm high off of hope. i'm sitting by a boy who doesn't know he's a young god with a regretful face. he's sitting by a girl who doesn't know she's made of gold and honey.

arise, arise, arise.