There are words here,
so many words here
I wish you could read,
when you say it is just paper,
what's written on the veneers,
on sidewalk squares and on skin,
no, the pages are not
all white crisp copy sheets
some have tears and wrinkles
some are colored in more than one
I am written on a spectra from
pale thighs to a golden tan,
interrupted only by the
faint creases of scars from
living life too hard,
and no, I did mean that
living in the suburbs can be dangerous
no, the danger is not affluenza
it’s the paper cuts of standards
it’s the silent eraser of expectations
that wears away paper kids until they die
and no, I did mean dead
because we cannot be recycled
no, we are not recyclable
because we have unique stories
and no, they are not like fairy tales
because I have no golden locks
I’ve gotten burned by more than just porridge
and I’m trying to find my “just right”
just read, it’s printed on my paper folds
because our lives are inked differently in this town
and no, I did not say drawn in bright chalk
but inked, bloodstains on the insides of my veins
describing the whole picture of my life
and no, the picture is not pretty but
beauty is still written all the same
even if we are not all the same
we paper people have words
as meaningful as anything else,
as special as the city and the prairie
we’re not supposed to have,
yet their words tell me
how paper the pleasant,
how pleasant the paper
people would crumple in the wordless, paper towns.