Intro to jealousy.

I cross my t's and dot my i's because people told me to in preschool.
And I swear and drink coffee because people tell me I shouldn't.

There's an itch in my throat and I'm blaming it for the coughing, but really I'm coughing because the words are painful coming up.

I wasn't always this way.

I became Axxxxx at seven years old because that's when I overheard that "Lxxx" was only a nickname. And nicknames have a reputation for telling half-truths.

i used to let the waves carry me as i floated on my back.
and the swells played with my hair and the fish laughed and i waited for the mermaids to start calling my name.
but the music never came.
and sometimes i wonder if it was because i wasn't listening hard enough.
or because i wore the wrong kind of swimsuit.

I'm jealous of the moon because she doesn't have freckles on her shoulders and I relate to the sun because everyone sees him, but no one stares.

Be careful with me because I learned to ride a bicycle when I turned seven. Be careful with me because all of the medication I used to film was my own. Be careful with me because it's 12:03 pm and I'm talking about second chances already.

I am jealous because I can hear your heartbeat better than I can hear my own and I don't know if that means that we aren't created equal, but I know better than to presume my bones are firewood and the world is in need of a martyr.

I only cut a couple times. But when they were charting my list of scars, they would always look over the scars that mattered. They looked too hard at the effects without taking into consideration the causes. My heart is netted in scar tissue and suffocating in duct tape.

I've never known consciousness without pressing the snooze button, but I still wear white underwear bluffing innocence.

I'm jealous of your jacket because it tastes your smell as only as I do and it brushes your skin so often it forgets how electric the first touch was.

I'm jealous of the waves because they crash, but they don't burn.
They kiss but they don't tell.
They love but they don't linger.

I'm jealous of the computer keys for how often they get fingered.

I was afraid of it. Afraid you would know your laptop's screen better than you knew the scar on my cheek or the taste of my skin.

Jealous is wanting to be the cigarette because of how it briefly clings to your lips even though she's later dropped as if those minutes you held her between your fingers meant nothing. I want to be your addiction. But smokers take new cigarettes from new packages. Smokers do not pick the same cigarette off the cement. We all want to be lit on fire sometimes.

Jealous is wanting to be the newspaper just for a moment. Because telling you my story isn't the same as you reading the headlines hacked into my heart. Because I'm trying to tell you so many things with my hands that my brain isn't capable of forming into words. That my mouth won't let me speak for fear of retribution. The two are waging a war against the other and my heart chooses not to get involved. My heart claims she's Switzerland.

But jealousy was never green. Because green is not a creative color. And don't tell me jealousy doesn't know how to tell a story.