relieved not to be four-years-old again learning I am not the center everything constantly spiraling hourly coping with roller coaster emotions, up and down seesaw
You sit in moms bed and yell for her to come and get you with a smile on your face / I guess you didn’t care about being scared to ask for what you wanted / You never even asked, i don’t think / you always screamed /
If you are a female firstborn, your ears are pierced at birth, though earrings may be taken away at five, when you walk on your father make out with your mother’s cousin.
post-shower mirror glance shows someone else’s stomach stretch out my hand shocked that it’s me— deep plum lines streaking silly-nilly up, making my belly button parenthetical, have gone silent
my body has been my body before i was allowed to paint my nails / or wear makeup / or shave my small tan legs in mom’s clean white tub / as i giggled and hugged myself / because this is what big girls did
This body will weigh down by judgments. The scars too will be mocked and questioned. The flab will be disgusted and hated. Cursing the periods, while thinking, you should’ve gone out or waited.
Staring at my body in the mirror is like waiting looking for answers from a dead man. The dead cannot speak, and my body cannot repair the brokenness inside me.
“It looks nicer straight,” they said to me with a grin on their face. Because God had blessed us With the rarity That is the lack of humidity On a Florida summer day.
