Conspiracy of an Eight Year Old Girl

Around her neck
a beaded choker of indigo
and gold. Pearlized plastic
too loose for her wrist
too tight for her throat.
She wears it proudly for the big sister
whose little sister didn't want it.
A regifted token
singing out - you mean the world to me!
and she would pay it back too
or forward
or to anyone who would accept
a token bought with two shiny quarters,
three pennies and a nickel.


SNAP


The skin on the inside of her wrist
pulses purple red as rubber bands
woven
pulled back
catapult flinging self-hate
       I do this when I baby talk
or pick my nose
Everyone told me to stop
and hurting myself helps
make everyone happy


well...not everyone


just Melissa and Gay-Barr
and the sixteen other people who don't
like me for me


SNAP


Welts building, swelling
where veins pulse blue, less
angry than the crowd of mad critics
(Oh, that maddening crowd)


I can do anything
when I am ten years away from being
eighteen


Figure out the answer
this equation of carrying scissors
and boiling her own macaroni
-easy on the cheese-
Posters about truth and story
boards filled with the evolution
of bird people
and why
oh, why
is a creature with a brain
the size of a nut
given wings


When she sits there on hardwood
with a sharpie and her dreams
     scribed
word for word.


SNAP