7.

Well, for the most part it's half-truths,
quarter-truths, failing proofs you know
won't make it through two rounds of
testing.
The less of it looks surface-like:
stillness ripples rip still.
It's where my father smiles at me
not so true as real.

They're trying to let me get away
with whatever I want and slip-poof!
a degree on my knee nobody
will look at.
I'll get lots of practice, suppose,
in still ripples still ripping.

Thousands of layers of thought,
he said. So I saw birds raw
lungs and sand and a girl sewing
closed my vagina.
stop that.
drowning.
rippling still.
still.