You are as tall and beautiful as the Singer Building in New York City,
But your father calls you mustard seed.
The slits on your wrist spell out save me.
She protested black is no longer a color, but her insides,
And if her mom''s job is saving lives, why isn't she saving her daughter's?
When her mom hugged her it stung-
The needle and ink stippled in her back the expectations placed on her.
Her kitchen is a court where her parents find her guilty of being a teenager.
Her parents don't introduce her by name,
But by her future vocation.
The pretentious white picket fence and a dog that barks when you call it Max are distilled with dreams of catching the next Amtrak to California.
She spends twenty minutes a day cutting the rope her mother has involuntarily wrapped around her neck-
Choking out the little identity left
She screams, "Stop tearing down my infrastructure!"