Cold tile, legs Indian style,
Two hands holding one head
as I reflect on all the ways I
wish I could change myself.

Thick thighs that have always touched;
Stretch marks that extend longer than
my ambition;
An Italian *** that threatens to take over
my five foot of frame.

And then one night she calls me and says "Sis, I wish I could be a model like you…"
And stomach twists and falls in my gut,
as I struggle to find the words to tell her she's perfect just as she is.

Stumbling speech
matched with an unfiltered tongue.
A laugh that will break eardrums and hard hearts.
She says "Sis, maybe one day you can teach me
to read so I can go to college,"
while she tightens the Velcro that holds her
21 year old feet still,
because she never quite understood
where the bunny went.

See she’s what the doctors calls mentally *******;
genetically martyred to die in a society that tells her
she's imperfect.

And now here she is,
my sister, my reflection on
cold tile with legs Indian style;
Her two hands holding one head,
Reflecting on all the ways
she wishes could change herself
to be pretty normal like me...

And I ask myself,  what have I taught her?

She was an artist that painted on different sheets;
Not of parchment or pen, but an art of when two meet.
Of lips and tongues
Of fingernails and sighs;
She painted the most beautiful art between my thighs.

I feel like I have lost my ability to create images;
Those truly magical ones that can be read in a year or two when I feel this way again.
A sentence or a word that will usher up in me some spark to light fire in my pen
and take to the pages like some ravish creature.
Some days, the not so bad but oh so normal ones,
I stare at this notebook and pray divine intervention again, as if I know He bores of me too.
“Good morning, help me find my escape from my own head or else I may truly lose my mind”
Most days, like today, I sit in solitude and wait;
Sipping through my teeth the brisk morning air and hot sour coffee,
perfectly made by my perfectly placed Keurig
and doodle line for line-
Life has become some mediocre muse at best.

Lips and tongue of
burgundy wine red,
I part my lips to sip you in.
I’m insatiable in love,
with all intentions of
getting drunk on you-
time and time
again.

The ground trembles a slow
and ever-present roar,
growing into a growl.
The delicates of the earth
panic and claw at the cracks and edges
searching for a way to hold on.

In the unbounded bottom,
I see the end of all
and the beginning of new.
So I loosen my grip
and let the endless earth
swallow me whole.

Deep below the surface,
in dark and muddy waters,
she was raised.
Never looking for the surface.
Never knowing there was land.
Until one day,
the winds started to change
and the deep rolling waves
washed her ashore and far
from the mud her roots were
planted in.
The sun warmed her face,
Her fins grew to feet
and with a walk turned sprint,
she paved her own path-
so very far from mud she called home.
She knew her contentment was temporary,
as the rains always come.
And when the water crashes from
clouds to land,
the dirt will swallow the rains
and the mud will anchor into her shoes.

Hold your breath silly girl,
down you'll go again.

With curled lips and a growling hiss, he walks among us;
Yet you say you only see beautiful things now.
With a needle tip you shoot the Devil in
and say he takes you closer to feeling God.
One “e” short of the story you were born to finish.
A young heroine turned ******.