Candy From Stragers

Braids and pigtails woven by the wind
Framed a glossy crease
Chewing pink cotton candy bubble gum
And two smiling eyes blazed inside-out
Skin rouge and nurtured
I was told then, “Never talk to strangers.”
And so I never did,

But when I was 14,
and scrawny bones fashioned to brawny flesh
sweating pebbles and curvy streams from the yellow sun—
And proudly adorned with two new unbuoyant risings,
They offered their sweets instead,
Fingers still playing in the dirt, I slowly peered up

“Little girl so pretty,” they whispered
Calloused hands loosening my hair and skidding my cheek
“Let me teach you about love,”
Just long enough to hear the hum of unfolding metal
As the nook of my neck’s spine hung on the ridged end of a naked crib

And so, there I lay
Encapsulated in love and prickly cracked leather
Like sandpaper, scratching my tummy raw, red, and numb
My irises flickering back and forth, blue and white, turning outside-in
Tracing faces and shapes with the white drips in the ceiling
In-between the opaque and transparent whizzing of wood

15, 16, 17, 18…
Standing in front of a mirror
A used painting of camouflage and idealistic dreams
Dressed in crooked saline and fears
Scared to love, scared of lies
And haunted by the smacking echo of dry liquorish, so tearingly bitter

Susie E.