You think you’re unsaveable and that you’re going to wear this sadness
like a t-shirt for the rest of your life. You believe that every morning
you’ll wake up and hold open the neck so you can slip into it
like the ghost that you are, that it’ll come back from the dry cleaner’s
as full of sorrow as it went in.
This is a wake-up call.
Things can change. I know maybe right now you have an apartment
and all that’s in it to wake up to is your cat and your laptop
and a few ticket stubs, some expired milk, yesterday’s newspaper,
but there’s a whole hell of a lot more out there in this world
for you to see. Take your jacket, take your keys,
get in the car.
Drive.
You are not in high school anymore. No one can stare at you
in the corner of the classroom; you do not have to put your head
down on your desk. No one’s going to tell you that you’re fat
or that your freckles look like a jar of tomato sauce
exploded onto your skin on impact.
Those days are over.
And I know that your skin can be hard to live in, that your sadness
is a t-shirt but your skin is an oversized one, something loose
and baggy and uncomfortable.
But don’t cast it off, because one day
someone is going to come up to you
and want to slip inside it.
The two of you, together, living in the same skin.
There’s a whole goddamn road out there;
there’s a whole world.
So get in the car now.
The rest of your life is waiting.