The sun is shining so far above me

The crisp, sunken streams of light falling upon me

Bursting on my cheeks as warmth

Bursting in my eyes as light

Making them golden

 

 

Touch the rain with my tongue

Let it roll around

Straight from the river

Up into the clouds

Vaporized

 

Liberty gave me the right

To feel this rain on my back

To feel this sun hit my eyes

To be this nature

And surprise

The very world around me

And let them see my vanity, beauty, my tendencies

 

Before I knew this world anew

Before the sun could even whisper hello

Before I knew passion

Before the words, the love, or the feeling

Of being alive

I was closed in

 

Criss-cross tears across my face

My head drenched in a mental disability

They told me what I could not be

They took away my stability

Before I even knew the real me

 

Criss-cross tears in my eyes

As I realized this body was not a prize

I threw away my face in a dream

To reveal nothing on my mental stability’s screen

I screamed

Because this is no facade

I am thawed and well jawed

Thick Jewish nose they loved to laugh at

Wisps of hair on the sides of my face they took to be masculine

To them I was a man

And it affected me and they took control of my mind because they can

You cannot understand

Because I was just a little girl

Stuck in this click-clack whirl

Of hell on a playground

 

Criss-crossed, fucked up mind

The little girl who wasn’t supposed to read past grade level

The little girl who was called the devil because of this nose

And these eyes and this dark brown hair

The little girl who was never liked by the teachers

Who was a nuisance and a target to others

Who was nothing

 

And then I saw the window.

 

And I realized my eyes were glazed

By the haze of the fog on the glass

And I realized

I just needed to wipe it away

Like a spill on the wood floor

I just needed to lift this off my chest

Forget the rest

And look

outside

 

The sun sheared my eyes

Burned my skin

I could not look at first

 

I tried again

And it hurt worse

The bullies, teachers, and doctors

Kept telling me to come back to the darkness

 

They callled,

“You’ll hurt yourself!”

“Your mind cannot understand what you will see!”

“You can’t look out there, you’re so stupid.”

 

I took my eyes

And stretched them open wide

Searched for the pain to hit me once again

But then I realized it was just a surmise

To the judgement I was afraid of

When I actually found out how to look

 

I saw Beauty out the window

Naked, curvaceous, and brilliant

I pushed against the glass

The room was filled with a blast

Of the ugly voices again

Chucking my heart into my ribcage like a pin

I could not begin

To tell you the screams they screamed at me

As I pushed the glass keeping me from the realest beauty I’ve ever seen

Please, please let me out

Beauty playing with the fire in my heart

My eyes strain to see her but all I see are the shouts

LET ME OUT

LET ME OUT

LET ME OUT

 

I fell out of the window

Into the grass

Turned red

And I realized the red was flowing from my arms softly

I cried quietly

As Beauty came down to me

But when she touched upon me

My soul was complete

And the past was obsolete

 

I realized

I had to bleed

I had to catch Beauty

While she fought for me

 

I became like the words I loved so much

In those books that I touched

And in turn they caressed me

And, too, I was the glass

But that old me has crashed

And now I am what I saw beyond the old pages

Past the black ink

Past the language

And right in the heart of the art

 

I had to look outside

Break outside

Love outside

Throw everything outside

 

Be the outside

Of the window