sometimes i don't feel pretty
or smart or cool
or like i really belong anywhere at all
when people from my other world speak about me
i think they speak in tongues of a girl who doesn't exist
that they don't know the real conditions i am shiny
only against slate and the loose change of this city
makes me lose my luster. maybe then it is
only the middle school boys lurking in the yellow
hallways of my mind that can claim their false knowing
and i will let them, bend my too long hair, the split ends
dragging on the floor, and let them mispronounce my name.
