dead.

i don't have to deal with that essay due on Monday
and you know, i never did like Mondays so perhaps
i'll go play tag and head out to the playground instead
and remember plaid dresses and bare knees; learning to read
the skies so blue, the sun so yellow, the grass so green

dead.

i'll forget about the priest who told me
i was bad for expressing my affections
to a boy whose features are now blurred;
i was eight, i had sinned, i tore up the piece
of paper  speckled  with crooked hearts,
every colour of the rainbow

dead.

i'll no longer look at mirrors
and see shadow-rimmed eyes, so hollow
matted hair; the colour of dead grass,
crooked fangs, fake grins; i am not smiling
my dear; i am only gritting my teeth

dead.

my stitches will not itch
as they itch when i am sad;
i can feel the tug of their
threads and no man wants
a woman with earthworms
crawling on her arms

(and i am damaged goods, so return
me; send me back, back to the factory)

dead.

i'll lie all day in bed in my patchwork
tomb, neatly wrapped in flannel and only
my head will poke through; i will be
a caterpillar; a body in a bag and i will
never be a butterfly, you see; just look at me

dead.
i can eat whatever  i please
and you will always love me
and i'll look as pretty as mermaid
instead of ugly, like an urchin, or a rat

(i'll be perfect, like the Garden of Eden,
like those girls in magazines or the ones who brought you tea)

dead.

i would have gotten us that venue

dead.

i'll finally escape you; no more benefits for you

dead.

i'll find romance outside of concentration camps

dead.

you would have kissed me back that day

dead.

Laura would have lived

dead.

i would have a voice outside of poetry

( last night i watched a scary movie with my friends
and i prayed the killer would come for me
and stab me in the ribs; now isn't that so silly?)