"tonight, I'm going to get naked, take off everything, the principles I normally pin on my chest, the pride dangling around my wrists, the parental pressures burdening my back, the persistence I straddle, the playfulness normally wrapping my torso, and, as much as I can, the pretentiousness that drenches me head to toe (hmm...too late) and put them all into the washer and set it to heavy duty and the delicates that don't make it will just have to thrown out.

tonight, I'm going to get totally nude. I'm going to make a pile of the past, and old what ifs and hesitations, regret and pretense and all of the primitive and clumsy attempts being a better daughter, better friend, a better person, and I'm going to toss it all into the fireplace and let them burn burn burn.

tonight, I'm going to be stripped bare of the pledges and promises that naivety proclaimed long before my brain got around to dissecting the paradox of words. I'm saying goodbye to perfection and fuck you to prudence. just tonight, just tonight."

so it comes to this
sad reminders
of yesterdays, even yesteryears
a pair of heels, half a size too big
you thought you might make fit
put on some thicker socks for padding
stick a band-aid on it
but now it's clumsy and
while climbing down stairs to the 6 train
threatens to fly off
ricochet across the platform
land on the third rail
it's much too dangerous