why are the walls always blue...
in the places where it hurts to be?
in the places where i watch
a little girl you grow up through pictures of
a little happy family in
a house that’s big and round...

who am i in this story?
.
trailer park trash assuming the role of
dignified enough to be
in that house...
with a kitchen island,
and a garden, and a beautiful, bright blue
fish tank...?

*******.

******* for having what i wish i had
when i was small,
when my parents first cracked my head open,
and accidentally filled it with illness and
bugs
from our gross, apartment floors...

for i did not grow up with a happy garden
or through pictures that mommy
keeps on her wall...

if you are unhappy, i must live in ******* hell.

creation builds houses...
brick after brick,
and
she works hard in the face of adversity.

creation builds a house,
and i build a home,
for tiny children... but i cannot keep them
warm.

you don’t believe me, when
i say that
things are not well... but when
have you ever had an answer,
anyway?

all blank-faced, and
angry...

i guess...
i was meant to be alone,
because
creation means building a house.
and
being someone means keeping it
warm.

i can’t laugh the way i used to laugh.

not for you ...
and not here...

and i can’t create circles just to
run around in
squares, as if i didn’t give you
a piece of me and then
more than all that...

do you remember how we would
watch movies together,
about girls with white hair who would
go swimming
in oceans made of trees?

and do you remember how you
never used to tell me i was wrong,
back when you still understood that it
wasn’t your
place
to fight me...

because...
i remember that.

prosperity comes in…
prosperity comes…

she comes in...

shades of black and blue,

like bruises
when you hit me and tug on my hair,
and like
apples that ripen and then soften...

i am four
and i learn how to cower:
to put away
my disobedience,
my words,
my innocence,
and look at you like an animal.

i am ten and i know how to cower...
and how to go to school,
and how to live alone,
but by now, i’ve learned to wish
for things greater than mom just
coming home and for you to simply
stop
screaming.

so i turn fourteen, but still you are
evil, and i,
broken…
a doll, that grows but does not extend its
limbs
past the deep end
or grows any new sets of teeth.

i age into fifteen and get broken by someone else...

and then i turn sixteen, as time goes on,
i guess,
and still feel broken, but this time its
different than from when you first
broke me,
and i become harder but happier…
sadder, but sharper when in a
stasis, and
try to heal through watching people have a love
for others...

but i fail, and still become happy,
anyway
and

finally, it is now, and i can say i grow up,
as i will always
continue to grow, and when you come back,
i extend my hand in thinking
it’s finally safe when
you grasp it again...

and break all of my fingers.

it is now,
and i learn how to cower.

you could be such a handsome, loving boy,
and live in a
big,
nice house
if you didn’t insist on treating me like this...

you know?

we could be neighbors, the
two of us, the
kind who smile and wave at each other at eight in
the morning before we drive to work.
.
.

you at the office, and me...
also
at the office.

can you even imagine:
laughing at whatever winter wonderland party
they hold
with no worries,
no secrets,
no walls...

but i have given up,
as you have grown cruel,  
still thinking of me in that mean, wretched way,
despite the fact that you probably say you don't really care...

but you're just that animal,
the one
you turned into for him-- what
do they call them again?

pigs?

you stand among us,
as though we were not shattered when
you took apart all that we made
to give you...

and i become that seething
sniveling,
mess on the floor...
when you tell me that you are leaving again,
as if i didnt just
create love to place in
your hands,

a kiss and a blooming rose, you
are all that i am,
and yet
still i feel lonely,

empty,
as you stand before me,
naked and in pieces,

but singing on a stage that i made just
for you.