Ashley He / 11
second-grade social
it is peculiar, to be in your body,
but not quite, existent,
feeling thick finger pads picking away the
undone, frayed edges of the old church dress my mom made me wear
and knowing that they are my hands, the ones that play music and write
and destroy clothes like a stranger;
To feel so aggressively, every thump of the speaker through
scuffed gym floors, standing stock-still as the
air, it is buzzing;
but I, me! I am a stubborn dandelion, rooted
in the cracks of the floor,
watching through my not-eyes,
the people I know zoom past,
and I believe I am still,
though perhaps I am the moving car,
and they are the sloping telephone lines,
and I have always just been orbiting in place.
Here, the people move too quickly,
the music is too loud, and the people
lack faces, and I wonder if they are as much
as intruders in their own bodies
As I am.