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You chiffon wrap, you frayed swatch of
Marigold and mustard fabric, how you Billowed like a ghost trail behind me as I dashed across The backyard, pretending you were Flaxen waves sprouting from my crown. My four-year-old mouth refused to eat Anything other than the wispy tale of Rapunzel. A fairy, I carried on my imaginary daydreams Of boar hair bristles smoothing my long locks, each stroke counting down the days Until my trips to the barber would come less. But my sister Wasn’t a witch nor was I a pregnant Woman in this story. All I craved was the long hair I was denied. My mom always told me: Fake it till you make it but I was naked in my little boy haircut. All I could rely on was the Eidolon I created for myself. So from my sister’s closet Shelf, I took you, yellow scarf, golden tulle, and wrapped what little Semblance of belief in my gender I could suspend during play hour. “Congratulations.”
That’s what they said. We celebrated the fact that, every month, I now have to stare at scarlet drops running down the bowl. They look at me differently when I walk into class, or down the street... everywhere really, tragically. I won’t lie and say I enjoy their plaudits even though that’s what they think is true. The way they examine me, makes me uncomfortable. I feel the need to hide for fear I will be snatched up, so they can fulfill their desire to get an even closer look and uncover everything I want to keep to myself and protect. Trigger warning: homophobia
late-evening february I am blooming passionately and feared as the shunned on their lonesome patios I am modeling out-of-season christmas socks I am chugging a glass of whole milk and dropping dry cereal in the snow I am dreaming -- —glaring towards to setting sun with unshaded blue eyes of the women forming into wives under the arms of their ballroom men under the banners: last high-school dance under the mistletoe: he collects her lips under the living room ceiling fan: fifty-second anniversary where I sit: watching it on the big screen I am ripping my romance movie ticket into scraps I am dreaming -- —I want to become my father’s daughter he’d carry my arm down the aisle meet my husband when we reach the end clapping for our lives prisoned together (unashamed in this dream: we father and daughter dance) I am dreaming-- —your red-chipped nail polish still holding my shaking hand of waiting at the aisle end turning women in gowns What a Rhinestone Means to Me— Duplex
After Jericho Brown My glamor is my counterculture Holding an x and y, I defy the suit and tie. To my birth, I am not tied But I cinch my waist with a sash of choice. Rhinestones over suede is a choice To persuade a toast in a champagne glass. “To your womanhood,” cheers my mirror’s glass For she knows how hard I fought for my pearls. From one synapse, She grew like a pearl After a grain of estrogen slipped through my lips. When I line my eyes and paint my lips I dot the “i” and cross the “t” in “authentic.” Watch the queen dressed in authenticity because Her glamor is her counterculture. trigger warning: homophobia and then, it was my second time hearing “the l slur” my father was born from a barber shop to the left
of my grandmother’s laundromat. he grew up and grew back and married the hair comb his father and his father’s father wielded, everyday, my nana to be drove him up their holler in an old brown buick —always late, always to pick up my mother. scolding him for his tardy slip, my nana to be wore a cross around her neck: held it, prayed to jesus every morning, lunch, and night. she told me once that she wasn’t irish, she wasn’t catholic. 23 and Me reports she was wrong. 25% ireland, 75% bible belt, I wonder: are You what you grow from? my first daycare was a sunday school. then i was grape juice and crackers. my father dreamt of walking in that church, in my wedding. no one prepared us
for what was to come. our brain, body, and spirit now changed. where curiosity once lived, burdens now lie. was it for the better? a bird in its cage
cannot fathom the ache felt by a girl desiring to create i try and i try ponder and feel peel a tangerine but i still don’t feel real is there something inside of me? a messy note tainted with blood “you could do something bigger than this” repressed from exploding unbeknownst to knowing i am not glowing should i keep flowing? when I die
bury me as a tree grind my bones into the finest ash mixed with fertilizer into that of the weeping willow tree when i die bury me as a tree so i can be reborn to provide shade for the tired passerby shelter for the homeless home to nest wandering robins and swallows and the rope swing that decorates my branch - dad’s gift to his little girl when i die bury me as a tree build a bench underneath my willow curtains to let the elderly couple sit they reminisce their love on their 56th wedding anniversary when i die bury me as a tree my trunk hopes to be carved with hearts and initials of young lovebirds unsure of their own fate after sharing their first kiss under the weeping willow tree She opens the trunk of her car. Trash bags tumble down, coming untied. I glimpse girls’
clothes, probably juniors’ sizes, a flower-print backpack, sandals, and headphones. She crams the bags full again, her eyes narrowed, her face drawn. Her hair’s disheveled. Graying. She reeks of sweat. Seeing me staring at her, she flips the bird, rattling off a string of swearwords. Jerk. She climbs back into her car and peels out of the parking lot, her tires screeching on the hot pavement. I haul her crap inside, all twenty-eight bags of donations, muttering to myself. The job done, I grab today’s newspaper. Reckless driver kills seventeen-year-old girl, the headline shouts. There’s a picture of the victim. She looks just like that woman. I long to touch her but fear
the lash of rejection my touch may incite. Sometimes, she needs a mothers love, though to voice such a need would leave a soured scent on her skin no amount of perfume could erase. Occasionally, she emerges like a frightened rabbit from the grip of the unreliable narrator claiming squatters rights in a recess at the back of her head. And all I can do is wait. Wait on the sidelines in the hope one day she’ll throw the ball my way and I will still have it in me to catch it. |