One was a woman who had been sculpted from the moon’s waning glow,

she had skin of the softest silver and hair as pale as fallen snow.

Within his bloodied arms she wept, her soft cries sounding through the flowering glade.

My Grandmother suffers from it.

So does my mother,

my sister,

now me.

A habit passed down through generations,

a chronic illness.

I peek through the blinds spying small petals of snowdrops.

You scurry to the cream-colored door,

yanking it open feeling a haze of crystal hues cooling

our bodies. Leaving small kisses.

Please, leave your earrings

Let me watch them while you’re away

Let me wash your clothes and mine

Mix the you and I, divine

The waterfalls continue to crescendo

blocking the crunch of the leaves,

the symphonies of the birds

that could not decide which tree

belongs to them.

My whole life

I watched the smoke choke her as it flew from her throat, and I saw

decades of lies fly with it. So when the man in the driver’s seat asked,

“Do you mind?” I was shocked to hear myself say no, shocked to see

myself rapt by the hand that first flicked a streak of golden hair from his

face, then brought that awful thing to pursed lips. I have never felt so

guilty as when the cloud of brimstone and stinking sulfur left his lips,

and I thought it made him irresistible.

My father’s voice is raised

‘One more sound,’ he warns

‘Just. One. More.’

My brother’s feet

poise, strike

Sleek double-barrels slide

Down my throat, squeeze

Shockwaves silence the fret

Steady, locked in endless pirouette

My life has been measured out in communion cups–

Heavenly Drain-O remedies to purge the disgust

I cling to it desperately.

A golden child rusted away

Tossed from eden to calamity

Fell from the heavens like a demon

Broken angel wings

Divinity corrupted by almighty expectation