i am a well of overused phrases,
expressing admiration and impressing the masses,
hollow and cosmetic we sing praises to the beautiful and empty.
hollow me out and love my body;
inch for inch we are an emotional condition waiting to implode.
where are the secrets of our youth?
hiding in the hopes we once carried before we realized that mama and papa read from a script,
mama and papa don’t know miracle from misdemeanor,
we are the children of the daunted generation.
they hovered over your bed at night,
watching your precious breath travel through your body.
they hovered and hoped, they dreamt the world for you,
and then the world took you.
here we are, carrying the hearts of the mother in our own wildly beating chests,
and i would hope for nothing more than to one day be able to say,
i know i have made you proud.
because girls like me are hung up on high strung hearts,
girls like me are apt to fall apart at the seams,
because we are threaded together with the tender heartstrings of fathers
who thought the world of us and left us to the world,
wolves in sheeps clothing, they take us and we are glad for it,
glad to be taken by anyone.
because when papa don’t take your heart to heart,
you take what you can get.
so let the wolf sink in his teeth,
pull the wool over your eyes and get in over your head,
because while we may know on the inside there is no satisfaction in reconciling fiction to fact,
on the outside we all know that under the sheep’s clothing,
in the moment before the wolves gnash their teeth and rip you to peace,
it is warm under the wool,
it is warm and safe under the wool.
Garbanzo Bae 