aunt b’s gonna ask me to do theatre again so here’s words on everything i feel i never got

i wanted to be your student director;

your leading lady, standing tall and thin in the shadows of a spotlit stage, 

the one to watch the cast while you run out for tacos, the one to introduce you as the director before the show,

simultaneously idolized and loathed. 

now i write about floating down rivers in venice and dye my hair blue in a tiny bathroom mirror.

i could write my own movie and make myself a star, but i wanted to see your head nod from the side of the stage like peppermint sticks in july.

cool and swift, loud and slow.

loud and slow.

attention is, if any dream, a bad one.

quarantine spared me, i didn’t want to be your cow. 

i don’t want to be your cow, not then or ever. i don’t want to make people laugh, i don’t care if it had the most lines, i don’t like the way the lights feel on my face anymore. i don’t like the way strangers come up to me and tell me i did good, i don’t like any part of it and realizing that brought me into focus.

my senior year is not this year but the next

and am i scared? maybe.

quarantine spared you, too.

would i have walked off the stage if the show went on? maybe.

but i wonder if knowing that hurts more than knowing your show was never a show. or is it good i never had the chance, then?

take it in stride, dear, like peppermint sticks in july.

cool and swift, 

loud and slow.

loud and slow.