JBWC SHOWCASE Chapbook 2020

METAMORPHOSIS
In an average lifetime, human skin completely replaces itself 900 times.
My baby tells me that I have to be a new me every month, or else
she’s gonna block my number.
My girl is going places, and she cannot afford to be held back by
anymore of the same old same old.
I remember the day I first looked down into my underwear
and saw red staring back at me.
I placed my hand above my navel and stared into the mirror and marveled
all of the ways that I could mend and morph.
Those days, I lingered in the bathroom longer than I needed to, examining my body
to determine which parts I would alter,
eager to become something new, not just the same old same old.
These days, I marvel at the delicacy of my life and tamper with my body,
the only thing I own fully.
I wear red lipstick and dye my hair the same shade of cherry.
I stick metal through my left nostril, and bite my tongue until I taste red.
My mother agrees to let me carry her Michael Kors bag as long as I wear my church shoes.
I put on the shoes, and imagine that I’m slipping on her red bottoms.
The collar of the dress that I bought for fifteen dollars at the thrift store is loose
around my neck and I adjust it as I sit in the pews
restless.
As some parts of me expand and others shrink, I discover that I have trouble
fitting into my clothes, and most other places.
There is a little girl sitting next to me.
At the end of each tiny black braid, she wears a little red bow.
I wonder if she knows
that one day she will inherit this acne, these burnt fingernails, these worries
and hold onto them just as fiercely
as I do
afraid that the next time she changes will be the last.