on self-assessment

This is a poem for all the people who still
have something to see in me. I could
cut myself on the sharp edge of my thoughts,

bleed out a saturated river of
something sweet; I could be like a million
other gifts from mother nature to preserve

in glass cases and scientific journals and
buzz words, to picket and fight over and
eventually forget. I could

write a million stories about the universe
in my stomach, and my lack of
a gag reflex and the irony in that.

I could write about the blooming storms
in my head and about how I’m addicted
to bad weather, and how I can’t hear myself

over the static waves rocking me to sleep.

My best friend is the most beautiful hurricane
I’ve ever seen, slow motion wreckage who says things like

what does it even mean, where are
we going, maddie, what am I even here for;

My first love wasn’t special. It was

ignorant and narcissistic and orbited around me
like some neglected planet, like I
was finally the center of a universe

besides my own, and that was enough.

Now, now is the season of metamorphosis
and I am measured by the bruises down my throat
and items on my bucketlist.

Now, now when I say I miss you,
you can know I never really meant it
at all.