I’ve said it before but I’ll say it
again, for the sake of this poem.
I am not the kind of person that
things happen to.
I am not the kind of person that
things happen to, so I make it up.
I draw the dragon and then I
jump on its back.

I take a feeling and I say
‘Do something! Become something!
Help me or go away!’

There’s usually a boy. Sometimes
not. Either way, there’s someone
and they’ve hurt me.
There’s someone and they don’t
love me back,
because that’s what I want. That’s
my poetry.

I’m sorry, you know? I don’t know
what to do with the ones who have
already been here, so I pretend.
I play dolls. I change their names
and their clothes and their stories.

Call me what you want. I know
what the truth is. I know what to
put in between the lines to make it
sting like a real thing.
I know how to make myself better.

Still, I wish I could touch my
own heart instead of writing about
what it must feel like.
I wish I could do anything without
faking it.
What’s left to be honest about,
if not this? What’s left?

When things don’t happen,
I kick up the dirt, I blow on the
dust, I shake the snow globe.
So what if dragons aren’t real?
I bet you wish they were.