why make me this way

all painted and poet brown

like black women sleeping in silk caps

praying it lays their hair flat

not born but bred 

to carry the cotton sack

a touch away from the fairy tales

we tell ourselves

 

buried bones triple axle across a lake of frozen dreams

 

The way I’m is

I’ve loved left and leapt

changing my heart’s mind with the cool breeze of a whim

unable to warm my daughter’s hands

the invisible man,

whose breaths give him away in winter 

 

I put on normalcy like a stiff cloak

to tackle the little anxieties of the day

at home, unsheathed and alone

I wonder aloud

Why I’m made this way

 

Smear this idea of fate 

on with a thick brush

dipping in faith

to replenish the bristles

as I write the rest down

from my burning castle