I am a filthy kinda beautiful.

Smudged makeup and bitten lips,
I choke on half finished poems
and we all call what I cough up
lovely instead of lonely

the dirty kinda pretty where
I drop G’s off the end of my words
without anyone sayin’ anythin'
because I have a soft mouth
that I hear looks good for somethin’

an ugly hopeful, the point where prayer
is not enough and even the preacher knows,
hearing “Things are gonna get better”
and knowing it isn’t true,
it isn’t kindness,
they just don’t know what else to say

sloppy poetry, sloppy kisses, sloppy love,
I am a mess of a girl
callin’ herself Grown,
as though I still don’t cry myself to sleep
like I did when I was a child,
as though I still don’t dream
of something so spectacularly better
it could only ever be called a fairytale