The first time I bloomed
was under the threadbare covers
on my silk mattress.

It was odd.
I mean, the utter controversy
of the two cloths clashed teeth to bone,
gums to tendons.
Made by the same mother,
abandoned by both.
(I guess in some way they were meant to be)

I grew out of childish fantasies
years ago, shredding it
like satin snakeskin,
but I can't help but wonder
if lukewarm serendipity
and blushing luck
were controlled by not a higher power
but our own heartstrings.

It would be an interesting sight,
to see braided desaturated yarn
entwined in our limbs like a tangled puppet.
Does that mean we are controlled?
Or perhaps the "control"
we see is merely an illusion,
easy to rip through like tissue paper.

I remember that my body burned.
From ever-growing light coiled around
split ends and twisting fingertips.
The light was skintight,
another layer of my skin.
My bones unfurled,
eyes glowing like fairy lights,
weeds creeping out of the fringes of my chest cavity.
Hands turned into bouquets of lilies,
pedals waving farewell,
why, I could not say, but it's metaphorical.
Kissing the wounded parts of my soul,
I grew bundles of baby's breath and chrysanthemums.

The second time,
while my hair grew into flames
and the hinges of my heart
oxidized into green,
my mother found out.
What she thought was a childish misunderstanding
grew into a maze of prejudice and disgust.

I knew, my mother never liked it, from the start.
Perhaps she was stuck,
in the past,
in the mindset,
in the fear,
in the normality,
and this,
this was not normal.

She sneered at me and my father
shook his head in disappointment.

Twang in my chest,
I tried to atone for my sin,
but I stopped halfway
because I realized even if I tried,
the growth would only speed and this time
the flowers would be blackened and dead.

The third, I tried to stop it.
I couldn't survive another heartbreak
so I folded it away,
into twos and threes
until the creases refused to crease
and rice paper cracked
into three million pieces
of jagged bones.

I never knew destruction was beautiful until then.

The fourth, I gave up on my reconciliation.
Why try when it wasn't going to work anyways?
I waited out the furnace in my heart
and for the first time,
wondered why I couldn't be normal.

I was meant for a happy ending,
driving into a sunset with a boy by my side
and it didn't make sense
(but ironically it did).
Girls couldn't like girls.

But I did, I did.
And though my mother screamed obscenities
and my father looked at me in disgust,
I could not throw it out
like bottles of spoiled milk.
I could no less cut out my own being
than stop this.

And through my suffering I surmised
that if this was seen so revolting,
then I should go down for it.
A life for a life,
that's what I thought.

But was it worth it?
I do not know.
But me, me who loves as much as I hate---
I cannot cut this out of me.

And maybe, just maybe---
even as I fade like the waning moon under my parents' hatred,
and this thing inside of me is cherished and kept inside
the hearts of others
---maybe it's alright.

Maybe I will be okay.