IDENTITY CRISIS — HERCULANEUM

Your plain brown hair
Messed perfectly
Around your face
Too perfectly, in fact.
Forced.

And your mismatched
Sweater and shirt,
With effort were they
carelessly picked.
"Thrown on",
you might say.

The ripped jeans,
Your pursed lips
While your darting eyes
Peer down the ripened
Anglo-Saxon nose
Over which they’re perched,
Quietly confess.

Your gum is even
Chewed with thought.

But your thin pink hands,
With their reddened knuckles
Rebel,
Poised in their stature
As your slight fingers curl
Upon themselves
Ready to grasp
An imaginary broom
To ride up into the sky
And with burning smoke
Desire to scribe
SURRENDER!
Into the air,

Wanting
To tell yourself
That it’s okay
To not try
So hard.