They tell me, "Your fulfillment is to be your husbands help mate"
That my goal in life is to simply help?

I'm sorry
I'll still get married, and have children,
but I will do more then just help.
Me as the over used stapler,
the poorly kept kitchen tool
is not gonna cut it for me

Instead I will be the words of Solomon
the grace of Mary
the faith of Ruth
the kiss of the beloved
I...will be...his muse
his lover

I will not be a the helper
to come when called on
and put away, to be sent back to the kitchen.

He pulls my hand
and I stumble up the stairs
holding two backpacks, four books
and a lunchbox full of old toy cars,
nearly tripping
but landing instead on the second floor landing.

The blinds covering the window in front of me
split slightly,
just enough
for me to see her smiling eye watching me.

I don't know her name
and she doesn't know mine.
we've never said anything real to each other.
we know nothing about each other
other than that she spends a lot of time there
at her grandparents house,
speaking Portuguese, Spanish and English
and listening to Spanish rap on the balcony
loud enough to hear through the floor
of the apartment I only spend six days in a month
and over the occasional fight between my family.

That's all she knows of me;
my fleeting ghost walking with my brother past their window
thirty or so times a month,
talking
but almost inaudibly, and never to her.
wish i knew her better
than as the eye peeking through the blinds



©Brandon Webb
2012

In the worlds eyes I am
a *****, wasted
sickly, girl
ruined by the world
people

but in your eyes
I am a high priestess
pure, as ****** snow
clean with no flaw

I will always be wasted, ruined
in the worlds eyes
but in yours I'm whole