I used to wonder why 

The other five year olds could never 

Color between the lines-

My parents said I would be an artist, 

That I would create beautiful things. 

 

I wanted romance. 

My first kiss was in the rain, 

But I think I needed a hurricane, 

I needed to be hit with anything but 

A perfect storm- 

I needed imperfection:

Lightning, maybe 

Thunder heartbeats. 

I wanted to be an artist

To create beautiful things, 

And to me that was always 

Oil paints, or those special markers that have names like

French Gray, Vermillion and Ultramarine. 

But then somewhere around seventh grade 

I started watching the world leave scars on 

All the people around me and I realized

I never really wanted romance- 

I wanted explosions. 

Fireworks, 

Electricity, 

Technicolor memories embedded in me. 

I realized I was an artist, 

Because every time I went to the ocean 

I let the water paint me with all the droplets

That once lived in the skin someone else, 

Someone scarred and smiling 

And standing, still standing 

After hurricanes, and sunsets that bled in the sky. 

I never wanted to color in the lines again, 

I wanted to still be standing, 

Bruised and blistered from the hot sun,

Making waves, 

Creating my own hurricane- 

I am an artist 

Not with paints, and words like 

Cerulean and Peach- 

The kind that sits in little shops 

Making my memories immortal, 

Allowing them into the marrow of my bones, 

More than skin deep, 

All the ice 

And city skies, 

All the droplets inside me 

That water the flowers in my lungs 

I am an artist 

Breeding a universal garden so that 

Someone after me 

Can learn to breathe ,

And never need romance

Or to color in the lines, 

So that someone after me

Can just 

Unapologetically,

Be.