Yellow Cake with White Icing

When I grow up, I will make wishes

And not tell anyone.

Like when you blow the candles out on your birthday

And keep the secret to yourself.

I don’t know how to keep anything to myself.

It always pours out of me like blood or vomit,

Spilling everywhere and it’s messy,

Falling into the cracks of things,

Even after you wipe most of it up.

Some of it dries up in the corners,

Until one day you absentmindedly scratch it away while you’re sitting on the floor,

Forgetting what it originally was.

My heart is not kept precious.

I give it away freely and recklessly.

Swinging it around like it’s a heavy locket

On a frail gold chain that’s about to break.

It bangs against my chest

And it hurts.

But I keep swinging

Because if I stay motionless,

I wonder if I’m even alive.

I love like a maniac,

Like people are drugs,

And I can’t stop partying.

I love to love and kiss and cry,

But maybe it’s time to remember,

When I was 10 with baby fat and a faint fuzzy mustache and shy,

A delicate soul too tender to live out loud,

So she held her deepest dreams close.

She was scared but she was smart

To not give away her secrets so recklessly.

When she went to her friends’ parties and there was cake,

She always took the piece with the least amount of icing.

No corners with borders, no roses or balloons.

Just enough sugar to get the faintest rush,

But still maintain control.

Always under control.

She would have never let mean, dumb men get the best of her,

Not when there are books to read and cake to be eaten.

I lost her fear,

But lost her composure too,

Over the years loving too hard and fast,

Running towards every chance to feel

Exhilarated.

Tripping over my feet and always wiping away at skinned knees,

Never stopping to catch my breath.

I looked at her picture today,

She was smiling in an almost grimace,

Miserable at the camera pointed in her direction,

Not knowing anything about her body to hold herself in any way than what she was.

But she was smart and quiet and strong.

She is my teacher in stillness,

And I am coming back to myself.

Taking lessons on how to breathe steadily,

To make measured, deliberate decisions

And to not give away my heart.

We will sit down together,

And share a slice of cake.

Our favorite was always the yellow kind

With the whipped cream icing,

Sweet but not too sickly sweet.

I am re-learning how to take life in more careful slices

After years of swallowing it whole.

Always aching in the morning with a belly bloated from overindulgence.

I’m starting to remember what it was like

To live for reading and observing and watching,

Absorbing without gluttonous consuming,

When my happiness came from my contentedness from just being

Myself.