I am Youth & I am disenchanted from things with names that I'm "too young to know" I am a girl & a word on the page for what it's worth, I'm another faceless in the sea of faceless individual in a conformist sort of way unique in the way that everyone else is unique I used to wear black lip-liner & sleep in the closet I used to cry at night for important reasons & stare at myself in the mirror my parents used to take me to a psychologist who told them that I didn't have the Attention Span & force-fed me Ritalin like love; I choked my heart would speed, I would sweat, & no one would listen to me I used to read magazines & billboards like Holy Manuscripts I used to know & believe in love its quiet yellow nights & stinging grass banks only to have it turn its head & walk off, forgetting my name & things we had in common I have kissed boys that don't deserve kisses & I have played their games because my ego was bored & I have figured out the graceful time for exeunt I have been to San Francisco & seen the wind-whipped orange trees & delicate graffiti gracing the blank concrete & felt air that was perpetually warm I have been to New Orleans & smelled the hot intoxicants & piss on Bourbon Street & the fragile jasmine & oleander in the French Quarters I have been to New York before it was full of holes & Terror & Candlelit Vigils, when the buildings made day with blue skies & no sunlight I have drifted through the streets of Seattle at night & observed the Collective Populace pretend that it didn't know loneliness I have tried to become, in this order: Somebody, Everybody, Myself my eyes have been manipulated over 2,000 times a day with images of lipstick, abandon, & sensuality things that fill me with a sense of inadequacy & deficit I have dreamt of dragons & being stolen from my mother & elusive kissing & sanitary bathrooms & blue-green blankets I have read about Greek deities & saw one of them ride through Fremont, behind the nudes wearing body paint on bikes, with white flowers on her head & white shells around her neck I have run barefoot in the rain I have stepped on glass & mud & gravel & forgotten my coat & shoes I have slept on carpets & wood & strange soft beds I have slept amidst Nature's soundless exhale in the crook of her elbow as the colors of her eyes rained down around me I have woken up not remembering where I had been I have seen Death in all its damp & silent beauty its pale lips & stilled heart I have read the beat poets & the romantics & the moderns & I have read bad teenage love poetry & written some of it I have learned that I dislike Shakespeare & Dickens & Thoreau (mainly because I don't have the Attention Span) I have stopped eating meat because I realized that I was incapable of slaughtering my own animals (& having someone else do it seemed like cheating) I have little patience for people who remind me of myself I have been told that I am adept at the English language by the people down at the Center of Intellectual Evaluation however, I'm still having trouble relating to the nuances of silence I have eaten flowers & drunk amaretto I have forgotten phone numbers & misplaced directions I have watched kids in nice clothes beg for change on the streets change like coins change like revolution & heard drunks preach on public transit I have broken more things than I can fix I have read poetry in the trees & at the airport & on couches & in the water I have written poetry on the buses & in church service I haven't seen a Renaissance I haven't experienced Epiphany I've never met Jesus I stand up for the flag salute I don't cover my heart or recite I have a father that served in Vietnam building things up while everyone else was busy taking them down I can't stand hypocrisy & useless words I am intelligent & entirely unknowledgeable about things & often overwhelm myself with excruciating ignorance I am called an American I have never met the President I don't make the laws I make coffee on Sunday nights & talk with the airport workers I respect my teachers when they're cynical I walk into things with my eyes open & leave my lights on in the parking lot & forget to do the dishes I hate crying in public when I really mean it I hate crying in front of my family I hate gossip because it is slow poison it is disease & assimilation I am hopeless with math & science I don't like a lot of people initially I am a liberal because Democracy keeps drawing lines & blanks on the Republic for which it stands German boys seem to like me I am loved by an exchange student in Leipzig I live on a quiet street in a good neighborhood I have lived there my whole life & I drive a 1979 Plymouth Volar� that hits 15 on a cold morning I play team sports & realize how futile communism is the girls my age compliment me in a way reminiscent of pulling a gun I am watching my own mind like a beetle, skittering in a jar