Boxes

Growing up I thought that people were born with their eyes closed

Because that's how they have always looked at me

Boxes, check one and check the other

People don't know, they don't furrow in the layers as I do

They don't switch and twitch and actively make the decisions of which

Which part of me belongs today

Which aspect of my personality will offend the least and bend the most, and work and succeed and bury the lead like a switchboard of traits; 

That decide my fate.

And I'm always an impostor

Always lost, always asking for directions, 

And people point my way like the scarecrow.

Like tornadoes blowing me whichever the way the wind blows.

The box is empty, and glaring and daring me to choose one.

Well, I'm an expert at boxes

My whole life can fit inside it, and I've got it down to a science.

I can pack my entire identity in an hour, cause where there are roots there's power, but I'm topsoil.

My blood runs like water and oil refusing to mix

That camera that locks all my memories in a flash, saved for when my recollection doesn't last.

That lighter that sparked that fire.

All fit in a box ready to be carried from door to door.

But that's not the kind of box people ever ask for,

So many lines in the sand,

So many can't and cans.

I see both worlds so clearly, and I skip and jump and dance and fall between, never seen.

I belong in the spaces between.