You are her mother.Why did you not warn her,hold her like a rotting boatand tell her that men will not love herif she is covered in continents,if her teeth are small colonies,if her stomach is an islandif her thighs are borders?What man wants to lie downand watch the world burnin his bedroom?Your daughter ’s face is a small riot,her hands are a civil war,a refugee camp behind each ear,a body littered with ugly things.But God,doesn’t she wearthe world well?

Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.

Later that night she picked the polish offwith her front teeth until the bed you sharedfor seven years seemed speckled with glitterand blood.

No one leaves home unless homes is the mouth of a shark.

Did you tell people that songs weren’t the same as a warm body, a soft mouth?

I wear my loneliness like a taffeta dress riding up my thigh,and you cannot help but want me.You think it's cruelhow I break your heart, to write a poem.I think it's alchemy.

[…] but she cannot make him eat, like you.