There is no way of remembering how it felt to lie in my crib
with four walls that constituted my whole world 
I wonder, often, if I were to lie in it once more
would it feel more like lying in my mother’s arms 
or like lying in a lidless coffin? 

But I will never know 
because I am standing in the bathroom 
washing blood off of my bedsheets 
Because I am kneeling over candlelight 
painting my nails the same shade of red 
Because I am scrambling wastepaper bins 
for words I crossed out in my head 
Because I am toeing the line of knowing 
exactly who I am and nothing at all 

I am holding my responsibilities and my burdens and my emotions in my two hands 
calloused from washing dishes and dirty laundry that aren’t mine 
I hold them against my heavy chest and push them inwards to the rungs of my ribs
My arms tremble but there is nowhere I can put them down
There is no one to share the weight with 
I am terribly lonely and terrible at being alone 

Oh, but I forget that I am not alone 
I have my grief 
My grief does not have a spine 
It cannot sit beside me on the couch 
It cannot stand on its two legs and move on from me 
It can only melt into a puddle on the ground and pool at my feet 

I have been angry since I was born 
and I don’t think the anger ever left me 
even though I have flown from country to country 
moved from house to house 
jumped from name to name —
it has just aged into grief 

My grief slides up my spine, latches onto my ribs, and wraps itself around my mouth 
I cannot scream for help 
I cannot beg for sympathy 
I cannot sing for forgiveness 

My tongue is not mine
It is mutinous, it is traitorous 
I dream in a tongue that is not that of my mother’s 
I dream in a foreign language I cannot decipher 
I dream of afternoons I will not spend and locks of hair I will not grow 

I am sitting in the kitchen light 
learning how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable 
I am staying behind in yearbooks and old love letters 
watching the people I went to school with get engaged 
I am mourning the loss of the love of my life
as he builds a house I might never enter 
I keep asking why my world is shaking 
without realizing that I am the epicenter
I pray to god but I fear I am too late 
my friends won’t pick up the phone
and there is no one left to forgive me

I keep the remaining oxygen I have in a locket around my neck
but that is the very thing that weighs me down
I shoot flare guns into the sky
and all I hear is, “It can only get better from here” 
But we seem to forget that an alternative to being in rock bottom 
is that you can stay there, worse: willingly

It takes everything in me to want to get out
to keep holding on to a fraying rope 
I keep holding on because my best friend is halfway across the world 
and I keep holding out for the day that I can drive up to his house once more 
and share a bowl of rice with him on the couch 
with the television running in the background 
I keep holding on because I haven’t seen the northern lights or the Eiffel Tower 
I keep holding on because my French is not yet fluent
and I would like to one day tell someone that I can give them peace 
I keep holding on because my body was given to me by my parents 
and to love it any less is a betrayal of the way they held my hands as I was learning to walk 
I keep holding on because I haven’t yet adopted a black cat 
and loved it on behalf of everyone who sees them as superstitiously unlucky

Oh, but the rope is thinning as I climb
I feel the weight of my mistakes inhibiting all my intents at ascension 
I have a lifetime of criticisms shackled to my right ankle 
I fault myself for what I am feeling as if it is a choice 
I do not rationalize; I am incapable of it 
I feel and I sit in that feeling 
only for them to call me emotional and avoidant 
without ever understanding why I felt the need to change my name

But I am just a girl
I am just a girl!
I am only twenty-two 
I know nothing yet 

I am just a woman 
who never learned to be a girl