I’ve never known how to describe myself
My friends and family paint a portrait of
a girl on the crest of seventeen, but who is she?

All I know is how to love,
To love other people first and then my soul later
Helping the people around me until my hands are
pink and sore

All I know is I would hold someone else’s hands even if
my own were bleeding
All I know is that I would pick a field of dandelions, every eyelash
from my eyes, if you wanted
a wish

I’ve never known anything else besides the desperate rush of my brain.
The percussion beats into my head, hard and rough like a concussion
Maybe it’s something I’ve always known, maybe it’s new
New like the leaves in early May
Finding their way back to the trees after a harsh winter away

Maybe in my head, there’s something that works well
Something that knows how to complete the equations written
And maybe that creature chooses another path. A path unequal
A path of love, art, and song.
And maybe there’s something beautiful in that, too

People always talk about favorites
Their favorite flower
Their favorite song
Their favorite everything.
It is so hard to pick favorites when you are so entranced by
everything around you

Eyes rush together in a mistake of trying to view all the
color in the world, all at once
There’s some sadness there, knowing how hard it would be to
see it all, being unable to see
everything there
There’s hope and love in my chest, and it’s there and raw
Raw and peeled like the skin of my favorite fruit

Something so hidden away until you really peel at it
Then you get the sweetness of everything inside
Something you would’ve never known if you never looked
Pomegranates are hard and take a lot of work
But so bittersweet on the inside

Maybe they’re a lot of work, maybe humanity as a kind, is a lot of work
Maybe it isn’t just me who can be a lot of work
Work is all around us
People thrive off of their work, some see it as an outlet for themselves

An outlet in an outlet mall, following its way through the crowds, desperate as
a child weaving
its way back to its mother
Following my mother through the halls, quiet and unkept
Never knowing how to read a room or a person, for that matter, but trying anyway
Anyway they can, they try

And I’ve never known how to describe myself