If my mother only knew all the ways men have hurt the body she made me
She made me of lavender and copper from the bits of herself
Sewn me from her own freckles and made all this brown skin mine
I sat in her body knowing nothing there was nothing softer
I push pins through pores to all the places I’ve been held or touched or bruised
Tether tendons around the pin heads to force new lovers to tight rope across old lovers stringed anatomy
Each stumbled trip vibrates a hum
Moves like sound waves planting pins closer to veins edge
At times
Stranger’s kisses feel like singes
All rough lipped and fleeting
But if they are willing to love what is in front of them
For just a moment
All of the hinges that they crack are worth the burning
My mother told me I was not brown sugar
That I would not melt in the rain
She never told me I’d melt in calloused hands
Or bare backed beds
Or forked tongued mouths
I won’t tell you that it’s hard to love me
Because its not
I will split my chest and let you cradle in its cage
All the time that sits between bone is soft and will form to the even syncopation of your spine
New hands fill the printed molds of finger tips before
All cracked nail bed blister bloodied
Stained rivets catch water when it rains
Turn me over and drain me
Pierce an arrow through my ear drums
Shoot fast so it leaves no splinters behind my eyes
Find the prayered confetti fly from the sides of my face
Don’t waste time reading them
Because prayers are meant to be swallowed
And when they tile your throat
Taste in-between the cracks where the moss grows
Allow it coat your tongue and stain your teeth
Let my memories shake you swollen
Watch my blood pool where others have played
I coat myself in wax and blame my mother’s warmth for my melting
She brings cages on her backs of birds she has stolen
Her right hand a mortar
The left, a pestle
To break a flocks spine to dress me in feathers
I can’t tell her these oiled wings won’t fly
I can’t tell her peopled bodies like mine cut through everything that is clean
She tells me I do not know all of your wakings
But I know there’s something wrong when I smell lavender burning
Jasmine Thorpe is a poet and graduate student living in Buffalo New York. When shes not working as a nanny or studying for her masters, in clinical mental health counseling, shes often scribbles fragments of poems on backs of receipts, crumbled napkins and palms.