Writing at Night

Wrote this at almost one a.m. this morning. It's not really about me or anyone I know, it's just sort of a vent of a lot of ideas and emotions I've had pent up. It's not edited or anything, either. So, uh.  Enjoy.
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Sometimes, late at night, when I'm no longer sure I am even awake, I am a monster, under the bed, waiting. When I am being told that it's time to go, the library's closing, please put the book away or check it out, miss, just leave, I am that insufferable question - just one more minute, please. When my hands dry out and the air becomes thick with chalk and I can no longer tell my hands from the paper in front of me, I am dust. But when I am walking through the school hallways being pushed and knocked and blocked off, I am just a girl. Just a girl. A girl. A girl who is, at the center of it all, nothing but that. That is all I am. Until. Until, until, until. Until I turn around and refuse to back down, because then I am a challenge. Until I walk out onto a busy sidewalk and throw my arms back and scream at the sliver of sky visible through the concrete jungle walls surrounding, because now I am mad and beautiful. Until a few moments each day, when I take off everything but my old torn t-shirt and shorts from memories long gone, when I turn the mirror to the setting sun and stand there, clothed but so, so naked, because then I am all the fires of time and space, of heaven and hell. And until my skin seems to glow and the colors paint wings behind my back, because then I am forgiving and I love this, and you, and everything.