Spellbound

I could spend years wandering in that same ellipse
Awake during nightfalls your parents never told you of in bedtime stories
Entranced by heartbeat lightning as I avoided foggy eyes
I was seeking a light that could not glow there

I remember the year I became alight,
warding through punched walls with her candle  
Flames licking at my frail wrists like kittens  
Where she waited for me I cannot tell you,
for the women who twiddle their thumbs amongst smoke in unlit rooms are the women who have shown me something about myself that was once hidden  
Hidden like screams woven within static and wind

I have always been the one who has to watch the doors when people come in and out
Guarding entrances to homes as I watch life pass me
Spinning slowly as I become separate from the air
And maybe you get and that and maybe you don't
And maybe there will always be two kinds of people
Those who change in front of the mirror
And those who don't
Each meaning so much more and so much less than what we fixate upon
Or maybe nothings like that
And maybe i will always be the girl born too late in the summer
With irises that have mystified my mother to this day
And a spellbound quality to my smile that my grandmother warned would make men weep