Someone would love to have you for a daughter;
Wouldn’t mind you in the attic, stealing their things.
The walls would be yours, as would your body
And four extensions of squid and lotus blossoms
Would find their kismet in worth, previously unharvested;
That’s love, kitty cat. That’s eons better than now.
Some woman’s arms would feel like a womb,
House you all over again because she surprises you
With bursts of oxygen and electricity. She piles
Books on your head and gems on your eyes
And is proud. So proud. So proud.
Some man would forge Babylon on the forceps of irony
Because he won’t let you collapse. Not ever again.
There is food on the table and cable on the television
And aspirations strong enough to hold their design
Well after the pipes were weaned from water,
And their foundation loses its mass. You’re
Enclosed, but hey, you have love.
If not them, someone, someone wants you
Who’s been carved from the dough of appeasement:
Bones that know hard work and tonsils full of
Ephedrine so the air, it’s enough to keep you moving.
There is more. There has to be your surrogate-family-
In-training that would do everything you deserved.
Someone would cradle your night tremors like infancy
And ripe the infamy from your cheeks with their hands;
Believe the hurt you clench between your palms;
Embrace the agate hard words from your lips,
The calcite clacking of your teeth
And the neck on a lazurite turntable.
Even if they are ashamed and keep you in the attic,
Your ears are still soft and your mewls aren’t blank and
They love you. To bits.
They have to.
Maybe they do, but you’re just trapped
In a cobweb made of ‘maybe.’ That keeps you
Treading because no one wants you for their daughter.
Anna Keeler is a poet and fiction writer living in Winter Park, FL. Her work has been published or is upcoming with Poets.org, Cleaver Magazine, Vending Machine Press, The Writing Disorder, The Yellow Chair Review, and more.
