Girl,
You’ll be a woman
Soon, so start
Straightening your hair
So it’s smooth and shiny
And cake on your cumbersome
Concealer because
Acne is for boys.
Browse bras in Victoria’s Secret
The ones with plentiful padding,
Push-up, so your cleavage
Screams: “I am a grown lady”
Even though you’re only thirteen.
Trade your sweats for slimming
Jeans that squeeze, skin-tight
Telling you to take a trot to trim
Your waist because you weigh
More than a delicate number.

It felt strange
The first time
I became aware

I just happened to
Walk up
The stairs and the wind
Blew.

I really didn't feel
Anything
Nothing, really
its just as if
you were stealing
chocolate and you feel
As if someone knew.

No words for it.
Yes, i know it's
An understatement.

It's them again.
I catch them glancing
Too often, too long
And Waiting
For something
To turn up.

- 01/21/16

shirelles
monday night
alone in a big house
light the candles
another one of my rituals
born one hour,
dead the next
to make room
for other
prayers
postures
pen tips
but the way candles
flicker in the sweet
soul
is not another ritual
warm life
to the tune of golden
notes
swimming through
once bleak
     once empty
once impure
       air
and suddenly, I am baptized
more than I ever was
in that sterile, dead
chlorine
    more than spent hymns
in drafty cathedrals
       so, the sound lives.


my bed would tilt
           at twelve years old
I'd wake
               startled of the
                       psychic death
spread like bodies after
            a paid for war
I'd scream like the cats
              fighting by the window
at my aunts house
               I would huddle with
my childhood
                     hiding from the puberty
that stalked me
like a jungle cat
               the mind reeled with
my spent pulse and
                 at night
                        under shamed
                   covers
                                 bitten fingertips
the white light
           on the street
                              looking on

She listens to No Doubt singing
"I'm just a girl,"
while shaving her legs.
The hair collects in the bathtub
all scattered across
like blown dandelion puffs
over the water's murky face.
Tiny wishes for
the barest underarms and legs
but she's a women
'they make us bleed'
or so they say.
'Cause I'm just a girl
I'd rather not be,'
while my innocence
circles the drain.
Lucky me...
I'm torn and *****
'living in captivity'
but "I'm just a girl."
"Don't you think I know
Exactly where I stand"

Beneath my covers in the
dark of night,
I felt pulled tight. 
My pajamas and
underthings finding all
the wrong places.

At my time of change,
I was gifted a bed.
I felt freedom.
A space of my own, finally alone.
The eldest, released from the pack.

Revelation of delight,
naked under soft sheets.
I felt the coolness.
My skin alive, fresh from a
warm bath. Feet wrapped safe,
deep within layers.

The Dreams came then...
I felt their calling.
Whispers beckoning me
into flight,
to float above,
observe my simple beauty

Gently slipping towards the galaxy,
I felt no weight.
Nebula's Helix, Saturn and Orion,
their colors became the
pallet of My mind.

Able to soar with the eagles,
into the depths of the oceans.
The whales called for me to follow.

Walking within the beam of
light, I felt warmth.
Crystalline aquifers quenched
my thirst. Grounding  me to the
center of our Earth.

Of an age now,
that comfort has settled in,
I feel whole within.
Naked with my soul.

The sheets still cool
after a long warm bath.


Copyright © May 2015 Christi Michaels.
All Rights Reserved