Who knew the boxes we were playing in as children would soon turn into social prisons.

Stuck behind the cardboard bars of “weird-o” and “crazy” wasn’t as fun without Barbie dolls.

Who am I to lament?

Ostracised within the “in-crowd”

That’s the teenage dream

Right?

 

Bound by plaid skirts

Gagged by knee socks

Wait, were we in Catholic School or the explicites that Father worshiped?

These were the thin lines we marched.

 

Drugged by daydreaming,

I marched.

Until loose sequins, feathers, and laughter tugged at my skirt,

Letting go of all the “don’t goes,”

Ms. Hannigan nurtured my childlike insecurities behind the curtains-

“Normal is just a setting on a dryer.”

Tattooed it on my chakras and let myself bleed,

Bleed color

Bleed life

Bleed Love

Bleed “crazy”

Bleed strange

Bleed bleed bleed the my nuances with abandon.

Bleed until those cardboard boxes turned to mush.

 

I bleed me.

 

I’m still bleeding

And it’s a gusher.