A ponytail
of messed up brown static,
green eyes a little less red
than her nose
but just as watery,
and even on that day,
she was all
the beauty I wanted to be
at eleven-years-old.
In blue pinafores
and gold collars
and ribbed stockings,
we were uniformed as equals.
Yet she always had my head on tilt,
upward and upward;
my neck sick from the angle I worshipped her.
Once, I heard her say she’d never
touch a boy she wasn’t married to.
Because she was perfection at her worst
and therefore wise.
I agreed.
And me with my awkward everything
hunched down by the weight of short-sight,
granny-cut fringe and boys who said I was fat,
I figured it would be a lot easier
to walk purity anyway.
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