Sleeping Beauty never slept
she waited for those men.
High up in her dusky tower
she would sit for years on end.
Cigarette butts littered the floor
around her curtained bed,
and as always a Prince Charming would come,
find her sleeping, dead,
her lips painted red.
Seduction and abduction
no one saw them again.

A pale reflection of yesterday
I sit in my corner,
smothering myself in sighs.
I promised not to do drugs,
so I will only smoke the colors.
And trace the cartography of my skin
with the sharper edge of you.
I wont be afraid anymore,
of telling lies to hide my feelings.
I'll smile,
to the world when it crumbles at my fingertips.
And I'll wrap myself in blankets
to keep myself warm when everyone is so cold.
I wont be anyone's Little Matchstick Girl.

I feel like I have the right
to cuss like a sailor
because I am the descendant of one.
I can remember the stories my mother used to tell,
of the man who made perfect pancakes.
It was all I knew about him besides the other story
about their first kiss in the rain,
then she married him.
And when I braid my hair
I am Pocahontas,
because if my great-grandfather whom I've never known.
I wish I'd been there
when my family lived in Morocco or Puerto Rico,
I wish I was foreign.
Even though,
it takes forever for my mother's files to go through anything
because she is not U.S. born.
I think I just want to know what box to check
in the race section of applications.