i was never able to fold paper boats.

my fingers would stagger through the steps and pinch the paper where i shouldn’t. i’d grip the ends of the fold and watch as i curl them crisp to louse, the spare note i used for sketching circles and eyes and faceless models turned to waste as the paper crumples in my fist. (and when i open it up again, my fingers creasing an apology to the corners of the sheet as i bud it loose, there goes the ghost marks of my grotesque folds; a seeming stretch spread through. and even though i try to slim the paper back down against a hard surface, palm pressed to iron, trying to erase these ghost marks and almost ghost scars, the folds i made to the note i left to sacrifice still remains.)

i was never able to fold paper boats.

like the way i was never able to dance through a song on my own, i suppose. maybe it was similar to how i stumbled over the foldings, easy, unrushed steps to make a sail, and yet there’s nothing. maybe it’s similar to how my body fails to follow the beat when it starts and thrums on the walls for too long, when the beginning has waned, for they’d also eventually curl into buckled knees and left feet.

again, it’s funny, really. i was never able to fold paper boats. but i could do art, i could draw, i could write, i could sing if i found the song that suited the limitations of my voice and i could dance without having to worry about myself curling into left feet until the last beat drops.

people say i was good at them. people say i did them right, unlike the folds i did to my paper boats. (they’d laugh and say, “really? you can’t do a simple little thing?” and i want to laugh at them, too. i want to throw a fit and label myself hysterical as i jut my reality to their gut. that yes, really. a simple little thing. a simple little thing where others would not be better; where you could find no competition; where you can just have the ability to do something and keep it close to your chest and hush it free to the world without knowing someone out there could be better than you at folding little fucking paper boats.)

it’s an ungrateful, wicked thing, that i want so badly to shout and scream that i want to stop being good. i do not want to be good. i don’t want to face the fact that i will forever fall second to all that i am able to do. i want to feel for once, for a day, for a minute, for even one damnable second that i am not just good. i am sick of being second, third, fourth — of being in the middle of the ranks. i am so sick of having the ability to carry a tune but never anything more. i am so so so sick of having something and not having it fully.

(and oh, “you’re good,” they say — “but you’re not great.”)

i want to fold paper boats. i want to crease them and let them sail and call my breath that pushes it through the puddle a wind and a storm. i want to fold paper boats and not worry about not being great. i want to fold paper boats without constantly looking over my shoulder just in case someone’s done a better job.

i want to fold paper boats and name the storm that guides it through maria, perhaps — because storms are named after people, i learned. and maybe in a reality where i’m not just good, where i’m contented with what i have like i should be, i’d be able to fold paper boats and sail them through and be my own maria.

(maybe i could be the reason why storms are named after people this time. those ones were great, weren’t they?)

05,
… can’t you be my maria.

+ this is messy but i have
no energy to do it over
or look it over or sumn

& cheers to being mediocre :D
let’s hope i forget i ever wrote this
when i wake up lmao