Boxes

I like to put things into boxes; Tiffany boxes, lined up in pretty rows with pretty bows that get lots of Instagram likes and lots of eye rolls and heart shakes and vibrations of jealous current. I don't like to talk about the boxes, because I don't like to admit they are there. I made the boxes because I like their organization and their alphabetization and their simplicity and their complexity and because someone once said I should. I made the boxes because boxes get good girls good grades and good girls do well and good girls, good girls, good girls. Good girls go into boxes like Barbie dolls with shiny hair but hairless skin; but did you know, women naturally grow hair on their skin? And did you know that you can't put yourself into a box because, eventually, you will suffocate from the lack of oxygen? And did you know, that my mom tells me all the time, "You can't put things into boxes, things don't fit into boxes." But, she puts shit in boxes too.

Why are we always trying to minimize the space we take up? Why are we constantly trying to fulfill the role that was chosen for us and nothing more or less? Why is it easier to bite our tongues until blood fills up our throats than simply say the words scratching to be let out of our lip doors? Why is it easier to give up on ourselves than on someone else? Why did we build the boxes and what are they here for? There is a woman box and a man box, a race box, a who-you-like-to-bang box, a money box, a loud box, a fat box, a box for daddy issues, a box for addicts, a box for perfectionists, a box for failures, and a box that holds the dreams that didn't fit in the boxes we brought with us. But the thing is, boxes aren't real; they are made of air and lies and some stupid shit some philosophical oppressive wig-wearing fuckbags pulled out of their pantyhose constricted assholes.

Sometimes I listen to Marvin Gaye and other times I listen to Bob Dylan and sometimes Sia and 80s pop and some really awful shit and some really beautiful shit. Some days I want platinum blonde hair and other days I want to shave my fucking head and other days I want a pixie cut and on Wednesdays, I wear pink. I like to solve chemical equations and write and debate everything and I have a hard time communicating my emotions. And some days I wake up and know it is all going to be okay and other days I wake up and realize that, "Everything is going to be okay," is just a box that a scared person made because everything is not always okay. There is a part of me that thinks I should run far away from college and civilization and write books about teenagers who don't know how to accept love in pretty ways. There is another part of me who wants to go to school forever and get all of the degrees I fantasize about having, and not so that I can be smug in PhD arrogance, but so that I can do whatever I fucking want to do and be awesome at it. Sometimes I want to be bony and sometimes I want to be curvy. Sometimes I am really disappointed in the people I love more than anything because my expectations are difficult to understand and they don't fit into boxes any better than I do. They fit perfectly into my heart and that will always be enough. Sometimes I want to be the one that leaves wreckage in her wake and sometimes I want to be the one who fixes the wreckage until it sparkles again. Sometimes I want to put everyone in a box together so we can all hug and be happy and sometimes I want you to all step the fuck out of my box before I send trained wolves to slowly eat your limbs off.

I am small and yet, I need a lot of space. I need space to fuck up and space to do better than I ever imagined. I need the world and not to take but to explore and touch and inject. I need enough space to run and build treehouses and have babies and careers and catch dreams in an ever-growing net. I'm gonna need a lot of oxygen, a lot of opportunity, a lot of passion, a lot more than a box's worth. So fuck boxes. Fuck the box someone told you that you belonged in and fuck the box that you put yourself into. We are multi-colored, multi-talented, kaleidoscopes of possibility and potential, and a box is made of fucking cardboard. Rock breaks scissors, humanity breaks cardboard.

And you can put me in all the boxes that you want. You can call me a dumb blonde or a spoiled white girl or a crazy, evil, manipulative bitch from hell or a Jesus freak. We have a box for that, we call it the God Box.