Add permanent ink to gain authorship over your body
because you are terrified that a rainbow is just a problem
in optics, a poem just stanzaic structure, and a cherry blossom,
tinged with the palest pink, is just propaganda to arouse
sentimentality,
and this is freaking you out.
Hold persistent ideas about shoes that must look a specific
way with laces you’ll never trip over. Believe you won’t
always look this way, feel this way, walk this way, or be
protected by that homeowners’ insurance you just
signed up for because you actually trust that nationwide
is on your side and liberty is mutual.
Know that that lobotomy they keep threatening to give you
will not resolve or protect you from the OCD that makes
you check your face a thousand times a day because
you can’t figure out if you’re really, really beautiful,
or really, really ugly.
