JULIA EUBANKS

I’m trapped in a forrest of cognitive dissonance. I feel the insurmountable urge to 

create without structured restraints. To practice, improve, and perhaps will emerge 

something good. The restraints leash up my brain nonetheless and the needles of 

pride and association abort takeoff. If it flops, then I will. 

The same feeling wraps my core regarding the way I look or identify with a certain 

aesthetic. If I indulge and immerse myself in a preconceived persona or external 

reflection it could be solidifying, or perhaps a brief detour to try something before 

putting my itchy sweater back on. But if I do this, am I eliminating whatever else I 

could become? 

Sometimes my body feels like an itchy sweater. 

How do I explain the ache of fitting a brain into a skull I do not know the shape of? 

If I remain nameless and open to potential, is that any better than cutting off possibility 

and just becoming? When does well rounded roll to a halt? 

A slit it cannot squeeze through. A slot shaped specifically for a few formulas of 

success? 

Is foraging my own path ever comfortable? or even my own? Is digging away the 

rubble as I go selfish if others cannot walk it? 

With a woven branch ceiling, the sky peaks through the trees. Minds set up in solitude 

just out of earshot. We all have different patterned light-leaks. My inability to see the 

clearing does not constitute feeling alone, 

But I do anyways. 

It was fun but it was never that deep. 

Socks on the hardwood floor. 

I fell out of my dress 

Hung her out to dry 

And it rained. 

A leaky faucet and a blanket that almost reaches my toes 

I felt like a peach 

Not fuzzy and sweet, 

Just coreless, with a pit in my stomach