you pretend to breathe
as a girl with a short skirt
and long red hair passes by.
but truth is, your heart is breaking
when your father taps you
on the shouder and whispers
that no one in the whole world
is as smart or as beautiful
or as clever as a girl with red hair
and constellation freckles.

you swear to your father
and all the beautiful people
that when you grow up
your light weight pale-skin
will be coated with layers
of freckles and your hair
will remind people of
what happens when the sun melts.

but this is a lie,
and girls with cheap spray can
blonde hair and fading grey eyes
are never as good at
the truth as a bathroom mirror.

and nothing swallows you whole
like the smiles that good old dad
directs at ripped jeans and red hair
soaked in gallons of hair spray.

in bedtime stories your father
said that such hair was made of
head on collusions with sunsets.
but you say her hair is a product of
little volcanoe people who burned
entire villages to ashes, and then
dared wave and smile back.
and you believe that her red lips
are glares from forrest fires
that she may have claimed
but you swear to god you started.

hey,
little blonde girl in the pale skin,
bruises and ribcage made of glass
and ocean eyes webbed together
with wasted sighs and camera lens eyes
that go in and out and in again
as the people stroll on by,
you should know by now that
you're aiming too high and
falling much too far when, really,
it seems that you're just
not good enough for sunsets.

but isn't the ocean pretty?