how to be an alexa (of the interesting variety)

browse the used book store for self help books you’ll never read. settle on harry potter instead. realize it’s not settling. be pleased with yourself. tell people you’re a poet. watch how they don’t laugh when you are completely self assured. avoid cliches, hard and often. leave all letters lowercase so as not to offend any surrounding letters. surprise people (example: send copies of your poems to your friends who hate reading. make cookies intended for entire group. eat majority.) sing loudly. be obnoxious. cross a line. be fascinated by the smell of lilacs. drink apple cider, too much. drink it hot, too hot, so it burns your tongue, so you remember the taste every time your mouth rubs together.

wonder where babies come from. wonder how they are made. ask your friend during a playdate. watch as she slides one finger back and forth between her other hand in an o shape. contemplate this for a while, analytically. understand that this is sex. decide it looks cool. decide you would like to try it someday.

blow bubbles. play with chalk. try to fry an egg on the sidewalk. be upset when it doesn’t work. sleep on your mom’s chest. appreciate how her b***s are the best pillows from an early age. never let go of this sentiment. go through phases, hard and often. metamorph. always be the tall one. hunch over in apology for your height. do your schoolwork. do well on it. be a very good listener. make people feel better. know how it feels to be the outcast. give backrubs as much as you enjoy receiving them. go to high school.

fixate on someone. make sure their lips are lilacs on your cheeks. thank the universe for naming him luke, because you always liked that name. anticipate nothing serious to become of it. quickly change your mind. attach your soul to his with fishing line. bounce back and forth into the lake too many times. throw your head back and laugh as you do this. laugh, hard and often, until it snaps. anticipate the break. fall into the water. forget how to float. guard yourself under a lilypad. rub your lips together so you remember the way he tasted, so your whole body burns. don’t grab onto the bait of any fisherman, not too seriously anyway. bite at the worms playfully. flop out of the water once in a while to show them the way your gills shine under sunrise. remember you don’t have gills. seep out of the water. metamorph.

find yourself unable to forget lilac boy. find it painful to say his name aloud. stop saying it all together. try to forget the evening you sauteed zucchini while he undressed you. find this impossible. find something to fill the white space. find nothing. scribble over it with black sharpie and vodka instead. feel better, for a moment. make a decision, hard and often. metamorph.

enroll in a college, a big one, one you don’t really want to go to, but that other people seem to like. decide you’ll be a writer. decide you won’t. decide to go to theatre school. make friends with people who have the same hopes and dreams as you. feel bland when you seem unoriginal next to your carbon copies. realize you don’t have carbon copies. smile when you see the world in a way no one else does.

go see christmas lights. give a dollar to the violinist playing the first noel. cry out of nostalgia. cry, hard and often. cry when you see the little girl in the carriage look up at the tunnel of lights in awe. cry when you see the line of tiny people waiting to speak to santa. cry because you miss believing in santa, because you miss baths, because you miss home. go home.

realize how both different and truly the same you are now. hug your mother. notice how if by height alone you have now become the protector in this embrace. notice how you drink more of her wine than she does. notice how both of you pretend not to notice. hug her again, and again, more than you think you need to. find yourself thinking about losing your parents more often than you need to. watch the way your father’s newly grey hairs glisten under the sunrise. use the word love, liberally. find this to be both yin and yang, as heavenly as hellish.

take walks, by yourself, everywhere and often. accidentally run into lilac boy. wonder if it was an accident. wonder if you should thank the universe. try to be civil, to be kind, to pretend it never happened, any of it. return from your walk to write. become annoyed when everything you write turns into drawings of lilacs.

give in to drawing. make art. draw fried eggs on sidewalks, the

underside of the lilies in the pond, bottles of wine, toddlers under christmas

lights. learn to love flowers that are not lilacs. take runs, by yourself,

everywhere and often. run far, through fields and trails and backroads. look

up. gather all the dandelions in your stride. place them in a vase. don’t think

about how long until they die. grab a pencil. transcribe the pedals to page.

make do.