Her hair is tied with a ribbon
Saying "This is not for you."
She wears a pendant of stamped brass
Saying "Non sum qualis eram."
"I have been a hero since birth,"
She tells herself,
As though that will somehow
Explain her scars.
She pierced her own ears,
But did a shit job of it.
Her tattoos tease around
the edges of her identity.
Her bones are ley-lines,
She tells herself,
Strung with symbols
Heady with meaning.
She has a certain "fuck you" inflected
"Je ne sais quoi" about her.
Her clothes bespeak
carefully constructed laziness.
"I've got my own style,"
She tells herself,
While doing all she can
To not be seen.
She studied order through science
and found it chaotic.
She studied chaos through music
and found it inviable.
"I'll work with words."
She tells herself
She'll write a book,
Or publish stories.
She wanted to be a bus driver
when she grew up.
Then a linguist, then a biologist,
Then a composer, a conductor.
She never wanted to be
What she became;
The irony of which
Is not lost on her.
