Memoir of the Imminent

This is who I am.


And when I look back ten years from now, I don't want to see you.

I don't want to see your expectations,

your heaving sighs,

your rolling eyes.

I don't want to see your face behind mine.


I don't want to see your cowardice

or you powerless

or the way you use your weaknesses against everyone you love.


Because I don't want to see you, or much less be you.

I mean,

I don't want to be that girl who

hides under her blankets

with that lonely Pandora station playing in the background.


Because this train has left that station

and it's been derailed

and it's heading south where the sun is shining.


See, when I look back ten years from now,

I want to see someone who

knows her place

who shows her face

to all of those she feels she's disgraced.


It's like,

I want to be someone who

doesn't need to be corrected by her mother

who doesn't need scoldings from her father

when shes fighting with her mother.


I want to be someone who

gets along with her brothers

and can tell them she loves them

and isn't afraid to show up at family functions because

she's not stoned like the rest of them.


I want to be someone who

picks up the phone to

call her mistakes

and tells them she's sorry

for making them worry

but she needs to leave them behind.


See, This is who I am.

Or I guess

who I will become.


But, I'm starting with my eyes;

I'll strip away the lies

that they can't seem to stop focusing on.


I'll make my feet start walking

and my hands start talking

because even if it comes to, "Talk to the hand."

I'll still have something genuine to say.


And then I'll do a lot of work on my heart

because it's the hardest thing to restart.

It'll bleed and tear

and fill with air

until it's actually ready to rupture.


But that's okay,

because it'll understand

when the person that I want to be

will finally become who I am.