I forgot to read The Alchemist
when everybody told me to
so I pretended I had.
And I forgot to watch The Matrix for three school years in a row
(and maybe that was an intentional resistance to authority)
but even so, for three years I wrote essays about red and blue pills.
And then you called me a matrix,
on the day I was obsessing about vortexes,
and I realised even the purple of mixing my poison wouldn’t be enough.
I needed ultraviolet,
technicolour,
prismatic rainbows in my mouth.
And once when I was eight, I spent weeks on a school project
because I really thought my hand made pamphlet on the dangers of smoking
would make my sister stop
because she mustn’t have known the facts.
I guess I didn’t understand the nature of addiction
until I met all the ‘you’s that all my writing is about.
But I mean really, I just wanted her to live forever,
back at home, playing playstation with me,
letting me brush her hair.
Because see, smoke breath curdles on child noses
in a way I had forgotten when I starting writing this poem
with cigarette smoke in my eyes.
And when I was 15, I carried my sister’s lighter in my school skirt pocket,
the one on the inside top hem of the skirt,
perfectly sized for a tampon
(or a lighter)
because I needed to know that if I really wanted to,
I could burn this fucking school to the ground.
So sometimes, when each of my teachers would let me out of class for varying sweet-talked reasons,
I would get out the lighter, hold it in my palm,
and walk around the classrooms that I wanted most to smoulder.
On these occasions, I never wore shoes.
Shoes are a mode of transportation,
gilded caging toes that need to be freed,
just another artificial guise of safety,
security,
salvation,
that’s really compliance.
obedience.
‘good girl’
I think the only thing I really learnt at school was
how to break rules
without getting caught.
Like the time,
when I was grown up,
that dad pressed me about behaving,
and all I could say was:
I did everything I wanted to.
And he pressed again, insisting on his parenting skill the same way he talks about training his German Shepard, certain I was still good.
I did
anything
I wanted to.
But I still drag my feet when I walk with shoes on,
like if I scuffed them enough, my soles could touch the earth
and actually ground me.
My soul could touch the ground
and bring me back to earth.
And while dragging my feet today, I saw my halcyon days best friend’s name on a building
and thought about all the shrines that were built in her honour by teenage boys,
because that smile was one licked by the devil
or the daughter of Hecate
seducing
before
devouring,
and it’s only in hindsight
that I realised
I didn’t want to be her
I wanted to be with her.
And so my feet need to be in places that shoes aren’t required.
And the sand needs me more than you do, now.