Today I am 9, 19, 29.

I look out my window to the used days,

see saw toothed predators

hunting my small, oblivious

head in the long grass.

I am suffocated by the

fire and brimstone perfume

of my own being

as I tiptoe back and

forth between heaven and

hell each day.

I long to let my hair

cascade down my back,

to strip naked in the

unblinking square

and ask the strange things

with six rows of teeth

to take my shame from me

like an unwanted cloak.

Yesterday at dinner,

I was a vulture vivisecting

a yellow canvas,

my talons raw as milk.