a sparkle in your eye
a baby girl's cry

how's she going to spend
the rest of her life?

reaching for perfection
fixing her complexion
and sense of direction

dodging
society's inspections

her father's aggression
her mother's traditional-housewife obsession

trying to escape their
suffocating protection

became an adult
run away across the country
for a new angle of reflection

trying to forget
trying to have no recollection
of their projections
on her own perceptions

learn who she is
over and over again

question question question

she's spending time making
connections between
the past and the present