Smells like a Shapeless Blue Dress that Feigns Modesty

Remember when you made a wish,
              a promise to the porcelain,
when you left a prayer in the walls that
            you’d never see the bottom of a glass?
A lie curled into my hair, slithering through my teeth,
        the promise of rain, or maybe a threat.
I wished to twist into shapes that
        will please me.
My mother doesn’t wear perfume and her
        sweat is sharp and her eyes are glass.
The danger of my truth tastes like salt & blood.
Someone told me I was marble, told
        me I could break at the veins,
didn’t mention how
        splinters feel like ice, how many
pieces I’d leave by the chisel.
I heard you were sick.
        Not the actual kind of sick that earns you
fearful glances from strangers
        but the kind they’d stone you for
if only they could see it.
        I whisper all the things I am not
so I know what I have become.
          I am a strange beast, waiting.
Listen to my faithful heart betray
      I told it to be silent. It is panic. Panic
is not a fault of mine.
        I’m hungry so I bite my tongue.
They call in someone to speak to me
        about the blood in my mouth,
the blood I left on the carpet.
I kick my feet and think about
        the pancakes my dad used to make on
Saturdays like these
        not that I could eat with a stomach of
stitches. There’s nothing left for me under
the chairs, so I cut needles in half
        and they last longer.