StoneFeet

If everything my mother told me was true then:

Boys have the power to burn you if you touch them

If you do something wrong your mother will somehow find out (do you know, mother?)

There are thousands of miniature trees inside me from all the seeds I didn't spit out as a kid

Turmeric cures all kinds of burns

Leaving shoes upside down or snipping a scissor with nothing between the blades  is what causes the fights in our house

Epiphanies come cheap and plenty to you, wrapped like dollar burgers in thin paper that smells like pickles. You are beams of light through darkened hallways with kissing couples in the shadows. Pressed into your hands are shapes of pennies and stars.

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My war paints are ink stains on the knots in my fingers. Sometimes I imagine they seep through paper-thin flesh and sinew, right into bone. Blue bones, black bones. Then through the other end, a tiny pinprick of midnight like thread through/a stamp on my soul. Long red wires weave through it like anger.

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I have never been touched by a man before and that makes you nervous. Bad things sometimes happen to those who chart new territories.

You call me beautiful and then you ruin the illusion. Rub the color off my lips, chip paint off my nails. You are trying to make me plain but it never works, does it?

I am not in the habit of losing. I will deny myself you, all the sunlight in the world and my sense of touch if it means I win.

I am the cold of glaciers, ice thousands of years old. You shiver when we touch and you don't understand why.

You ask me why there is white in my hair. It looks funny on a 21 year old girl, you say. I am older than your soul, boy, and made of stars. You ask me why I don't get it colored.

You run your thumb down the dark circles under my eyes, ask me why I've been up all night. Who do you think keeps up the facade when you are asleep?

You like me when I am soft, you politely try to ignore my hard edges, sharp lines where my true spirit shows.

You compare my skin to coffee: mocha, caramel, cream. You think I am energy in liquid, tangible form. But you can't drink me cup by cup, I cannot be gathered in jars.