Preferred Name: Eliza
Username: Sparkleunicorn123
Title: "Okay"

Collapsing syllables
From trembling lips.

Callused handshake.

Sweaty palms.
It takes a lot
To create a situation
Where
Everyone is comfortable
And all things are kind.
Without the weight of
Whitewashed lies.
Or the sunken cheekbones
Of a stutter.

Where I don't have to shout.

To be heard amongst the voices
Who can see me
Yet
Ignore me too.

And I don't need to answer "great"

To the ever courteous
"How are you"

I'm not
always great.
Sometimes I'm just
"Okay"

Why is that not good enough?

When every sentence I sputter
Is overlapped by another
Train of half yelled phrases
While we grow increasingly louder until
Someone gets angry and
Stomps out of the room
And my life
For good.

We make fluttering facial expressions
And sideways glances
At the people who can't speak
Because they are too afraid
Of the twisted ring of noses
Turned up at their opinion.

I used to be the one who cried

After every splintered word
Spelled backwards on the ink of my forehead.
You can't take back what is so clearly visible.

I still obsess over every

Missed opportunity
Every bad introduction
All the
Tripping in public
My social insecurities a piece of
Toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my converse.

So I try not care.

It's hard not to care
When all you do is care.

But
It's okay to flip a letter upside down
Or trip over your own
Feet.

In conversation
Instead of counting the consonants
That you said with your retainer

Or the missed eye contact
With a person you hold on a pedestal.

Try to speak with the eloquence
Of a human who makes
letter long mistakes.

Because it's not worth meeting new people
If you can't get over the old ones.