Crouched in a bath
in a house in my hometown.
5AM and the moon's out.
Kevin hands me a rolled up bank note,
and tells me I'm innocent
all in one breath.

There's blood on my hands,
rolling down my wrist.
Big, fat, poppy teardrops
blooming like the cherry trees
in my university.
Home is a funny thing.

I'm not a cool kid.
Just a drugged up, loved up,
half pretty girl with a good brain.
Mad
after the wrong people
in love with every
broken soul.

I'm just chasing dreams
and welded differentials,
the car turns and screams.
One hand on the steering wheel
and one on my thigh -
can't you just need me for a weekend?
Can't you just
sigh your little promises
and chew my ear?

Adulthood is falsehood.
I remember at the darkest,
hearing a voice other than my mother's,
mantra repeated for knife-depraving comfort,
keeping nails away from face.
I thought it should be the voice
of the woman who held me against her breast
who bore me through blood and near-death.
The voice seemed more woman than my mother.
The deep, solid, earthy voice of iron eyes and earthen hands
rough tenderness of nature,
the comfort of Eve
made woman, never born child.
But I suppose she understood better than we
innocence lost.

My mother has the fragility of spun sugar,
But steel bent will--
I realize there is still the scared child
buried in her heart
and I see the same reflection of me in the mirror.
Buck-toothed, grass haired, round faced, and wide eyed.
I wonder if I will ever feel fully woman.
Or if we're all just scared children.
Powerful and powerless
as the girl building sandcastles
holding dominion
till the tides of time bear them away.