Dogs

All my life, strength came from the ways 
I could keep my fists up
hide my sides with barbed brick elbows
protect my nose with a zipped-lip smile that said
I'm just trying to get by
so thank you
for not testing which of our bodies would break first 
upon each other
not knowing that there were more ways to
hurt a girl than a stoning
or a crucifixion 
for the world spoke sticks and stones, I thought
But words are what built me
see, I was lonely before I learned the language of human being
so I traced the alphabet of a book spine
licked scraps of people I wanted to be off the pages 
and let them breathe through me
I should have known that people made of ink and paper
burn eventually

When you said I was a wolf,
a stain, and that you hated me
I bled.
For the first time, I saw red and it was not at all what
Shakespeare said it would be
It twists me to be talked about
and the more I crumple, the less I feel like
the wings of a paper plane
and more like a rough draft
suffocating in the trash can 
Maybe blood slipping from my lips 
could stand trial to prove my humanity
Maybe if you knew I was capable of sleep
you'd stop seeing your monsters reflected on me
realize it was my shadow you were afraid of
not these fingers
not these teeth

I've been dissecting your misunderstanding
for awhile now
I walk with a straight back 
wear a quick smile and Converse humor 
on my tripping feet 
I weigh 103 lbs, they call me skinny
I laugh and say I'm just light enough to fly
after all, with wings you gotta know a thing or two
about self-preservation
modesty is preferable
white is best
easier to bury when clad already in mourning
but for all your looking, you missed a few things
I walk with an iron bar up my back 
because if you fall, they'll kick you
The smile is to distract you from the eyes
that can barely see through all the water
Converse shoes don't replace the layers of skin
whipped straight off my body
I may be light enough to be skinny,
but to fly you've got to fall and
if you fall, they'll kick you

But you'll crawl by and you
won't even know
ever ask
ever exorcise the spite blinding
your eyes you'd sooner
watch the favored one fall 
and kick her
like, she won't miss a tooth or two
she's too busy counting her lucky stars
as if the stars come out anymore
and the nighttime stretches on forever
I've never wanted a story to end this bad.
I used to love reading
pages flicking forth and back and forth
like wings, falling and rising, inventing flight
I used to read my favorite lines over and over
but you've forced a script into my mouth 
and it's saying terrible things 
in your language of sticks and stones 
I'm a bone you've 
sucked the marrow from the insides of
You know, there won't be any left for the
mushrooms
if you give my all to the dogs

I wish I were the wolf you made me out to be
then, maybe, we could have just
talked it out