I’m sitting in this car

burning eyes tracking

The skinny girls

with their shiny legs

and shinier smiles

I stare

with eyebrows messier

than the blood pooling

beneath the skin of my knees

purple, yellow, green

hanging onto their conversations

by the skin of my teeth

They let me in

a door cracked open

Just far enough that my form

misshapen and awkward

can get through

They let me talk;

Trotting a zoo animal around a room

and i’ll trot

i’ll trot for them

So long as they keep on ignoring

the knobby mess of my hands

and the wrongness of my smile

But we’ll both know it

somewhere

They’ll know it in the cadence of my speech

and i’ll know it

in the perfect red hearts

Still beating in their chests.