Character

Your assassination

drops at my feet, heavy, like a cinder block,

and I—your Cinders, obscured from the reality of your white picket view,

how funny one word thrown in carelessness

can shatter the glass thread between us.

My expediency translated only with the false belief I was enough.

Hiding behind the grandeur of your burdened cross, you lay

judgements from your Father on my delicate shoulders.

I cannot carry this weight on my scotch-taped heart.

I am the poly popcorn peanuts exploding from a package you did not order,

received anyway, with greedy hands and hungry mouth.

You will find pieces of me scattered for years to come,

too focused on the memory of the spilling beads to recall what was in the box.

Ideals of an insufficient girl lay to waste

folded like lost laundry, in the back of a closet,

in a house you will swear is haunted.

but I, haunt only my mind,

eyes blacker than coal,

cannot reflect my own despondency.

Expression falls flat,

I retreat to my cage to while-away the days,

a flightless bird,

content to wither, sick with dreams of flight.