about me

Each time I’m asked to tell about myself, I find myself starting the same way: ‘My name is Jules and I’m twenty five…’

but what I’d really like to say is:

‘My name means island of the ships but once

I found a translation that said I’m a burning shipwreck-

not a burning ship but a ship that has caught fire

after the wreckage and well, I’d say that’s more fitting.’

I’ve learned that people don’t have time for ‘about me’s’ .

They need two things: a name and an indication you’re someone special.

The doctors, they want facts not details.

‘I broke my leg when I was three, it’s a funny story actually-’

The right or the left?

Conversation over.

The teachers, they want interests, hobbies.

You’re sad, yes, but what do you like to do?

The adults are a spew of questions.

What school do you go to? What classes are you taking?

What do you plan on becoming? Got a boyfriend?

No, stop.

People my own age are the worst.

‘I’m planning on an English degree with a concentration in creative writing.’

Yeah, aren’t we all. So how many times have you, you know, done it?

I’m pulled apart, my interests traveling highway 2

my goals at a stop light at traffic hour,

my medical history on a billboard for the world to see.

But what about me?

Where’s the chance to say,

‘I hang on to fistfuls of poetry like loose change in my pockets,

and I keep waiting for the day that the world turns upside down

so I can swim with the stars.

I’m not afraid of darkness, it’s a loneliness I can empathize with.

It’s the black-holes like cigarette burns inside of me that get troublesome.

I walk through graveyards and read the dashes between years,

each a story I’ll never know. Sometimes I create my own.’

No wonder none of us know who we are anymore.