you were beautiful still,
the blessings of the gods never really left you

silver hair like fallen stars
playful fingertips tracing the sky
with twinkling eyes and little giggles,
you were almost childlike

i love you,
even your voice was silky as ever
your lips grazing my skin,
i almost believed it.

you smiled then,
i couldn't quite recall why;
the fuzziness of a dream all at the same time a comfort
and a curse.

but you smiled your toothy grin,
and it took everything in me to not smile back

******* you and your beautiful smile

butterflies in my chest,
i was a schoolgirl once again

i love you,
you were downright adorable
with your stubborn conviction

wind in your hair
sunlight caressing your cheeks
you held my fingers tight
and kissed me good night

i felt my heartstrings tug

but worry not,
my heart's been through so much
to possibly mistake it for love

they spent so many years treating me like an adult
that I never had the chance; the right
to be a child
I was told to grow up so quickly
that I never had the gift; the innocence
of being a kid

volume i
A Portrait of My Sixth-Grade Self
___________________­

Eleven-year-old fingers
swollen with baby fat
dig into the gaudy shimmer
of turquoise eyeshadow
encased in its shattered compact.

I apply the pigment,
erratic smudges extending
from my lash line
to just below my untamed brows.

The blue powder accentuates the swirls
of my fingerprints in dizzy figure eights.

But you can't quit your own skin
like you can quit ice skating lessons.

I am in the sixth grade
when the Popular Girls
in my class tell me that,
if I want to get a boy to like me,
I have to change the way I look.

I abide by the rules of the
Unofficial Mean Girl Doctrine:

{no. 1}

I mustn't wear sweat pants,
these sloppy Old Navy rags
that I have owned for three years.

See,
denim is superior to cotton
even though it leaves
cavernous indentations
on my stomach.

Sweat pants forgive
the extra swell of your waist line.

Denim punishes you
for what you don't have,
more specifically
for what you have too much of.

I ask my mom for skinny jeans
because perhaps if I can
shrink all that I am
into this blue, unyielding fabric
I will feel thinner than I actually am.

We buy the skinny jeans from Old Navy.

{no. 2}

My signature high pony tail is
unacceptable.

I should wear my hair down,
they profess.

I am not sure if this is
because of the tufts of frizz
that loom over my scalp
like wasted dandelion seeds

(I wish... I wish... I wish...)

or if this is just a necessary ritual
in the abandonment of my girlhood.  

After I unsheathe my curls
from their rubber-band Bastille,
their trial commences.

My ringlets slither
in hostile circulations,
executing frequent detours away
from anyone who might scoff
at their animalistic bedlam.

If only I could will
my spectators to stone.

Cuz no one ever dared
**** with Medusa
and her curls.

Instead,
I settle for a flat iron.

{no. 3}

Do everything in your power to be
Beautiful
including, but not limited to,
the laws indicated above.

Yet,
despite my grandest efforts,
it is never enough.

I am never enough.

I am the Walmart Edition
of what the Popular Girls
want me to be.

With my gaudy eyeshadow and the
cheap Dollar Store bracelets
that I wear around my wrists,
plastic flowers blooming
upon threaded stems
that nip at the hair on my arms.

One day on the bus ride home,
a boy from my class tells me
I am too hairy.

"Huh?" I ask,
pretending I haven't heard him.

"Nothing," he mumbles back to me.

See,
little girls are supposed to play with
jump ropes and Barbie Dolls.

They are not supposed to
play with razors as they strip away
every misplaced hair on their body
or consult Teen Vogue
for the latest beauty hacks
like they are Gospel.

This year of 2011/2012
has been engraved  into
the historical road map
of my every insecurity.
The legend of this map,
depicted in smeared globules
of sugar cookie lipgloss,
deliver me to my destination:

self hatred.

Mascara stains the
topography of my flesh
in inky, dotted lines

I follow.

I plummet
like the eternal run
in my stockings.

One way plane ride
non-stop
never to return
from this perception of ugliness
and then--

flight


down.

The emerald stones embroidered into this pouch glitter
by the light of the flames that engulf this city
a baby shoe, tied in a bag of silk
hangs delicately round my neck
my pendant to bring me back to you one day
the sanctified emblem of hope:
el zapato de bebé de una niña robada
a locket, the other half of which you carry
my two identities lost in a crusade de fuego y sogas
One, the baby taken
The other a woman stolen
Mort à la pute! une sorcière! le gitan doit mourir.
my sentence carried out as you watch
just moments after we reunite again
only to have to say Dja devlesa!
My face lit by the burning cathedral
Then slackened by the tightening rope.

wee bit of innocence,
left upon the rampant
running blindly with an open shield
to find self confidence
some shred of assurance of guidance
praying you'll prey in place of the prey
...
in this world, this world,
this cruel, cruel, wild, world...

I remember when we were children
my sister and I used to go outside
and pretend we were stranded
in the wilderness
and had to survive until we were rescued.
On one particular day in winter
we went out and built a shelter
out of sticks and small branches
and we got inside and waited.
We imagined that there were
wolves outside that wanted to
eat us alive,
but we fended them off with our
sticks and stones and snowballs.
Now we are both in our mid-twenties
and, ironically, we still play this game,
and there are still wolves outside
who want to eat us alive.
We are still waiting to be saved.

I love the silence with you.
When our minds don’t think
And our hands start to
Gracefully and slowly
Gravitate towards each other
Only to stop an inch apart,
Craving touch
Too much
To shy away.
Then our hands meet
And the slight touch
Sends a shock through my bones.
And just when i thought that was as far
As our courage could take us,
You hold my hand in yours and
I feel my soul drown in euphoria
And I would rather find myself breathless
Again and again
Than to ever let go.