i love lightning. i stand too close to the window during hurricanes tempting the wind to blow the glass in and scrape my body, to have the lightning surge through me and send me soaring backwards and into heaven simultaneously.

but i’m not scared i’m not scared my heart’s beating fast but maybe it’s not maybe it’s too slow. too slow and too lazy to keep up with my blood so it lingers and falls and drowns in it.

chest’s rising though. up and down up and down updownupdowninoutinout too slow for me. my hair’s a mess too.

what’s a thesis it might not be what i think it is i’ve been taught that it’s a one line statement that summarizes everything you want to say but life’s not that simple is it

stomach grumbling but i’m not hungry i swear i promise. just water please, waiter. i’ll wait on the appetizers but i swear i won’t buy them waste of money waste of time too full before the good things come.

baby pink nails but i’m not a lady. no skirts for me please black jeans will do. put them in a shopping bag and shove me into an uber. west side please. manhattan’s lovely at night isn’t it the rapists and cigarette smoke and the stares and the steps up the brownstone in the darkness i could swear that if i turned around a man with a grin and a “hey mami” and an inappropriately placed pinch would be pulling at my bottoms and i’m not scared but shouldn’t i be?

there’s too many street corners too many barking dogs and street murals. why do the buildings here defy gravity mommy my two year old self asked

it’s because god pulls them through the ground with a string

i visited ellis island once. i brought a pigeon feather back home with me even though my father told me that i’d get lyme disease. i never went back. i guess it was something about the crystalline rock candy on a stick or the rusted faucet in the bathroom or the green lady that i saw from the ship that was airing out her pits to immigrants. oh well. it was one of them, i guess.