©KeenEvenings

I’m getting my top surgery at Claire’s, Mom

I’m getting my top surgery at Claire’s, Mom,
After your mom told you earlobe piercings were too much,
After you laid ears on the plans I was making,
And sobbed tears, leaning on the steering wheel as a crutch.

I’m going to be taking off those things called breasts,
Which you bemoaned having too, you said, you know.
The back surgery you had was unconnected, for sure
and yours not like the triple D’s I was forced to grow.

“I grew you a beautiful body,” yeah, so what,
If it was ugly would you have then said it was okay?
I know you enjoyed the ways my body developed,
But I knew it was a phase in which I never wanted to stay.

You never saw the moments of agony, writhing,
In bed I wanted to tear myself open, apart,
Slice off the things I never wanted on me,
Yet, knowing they were too close to my heart:

I did not want to bleed out onto the sheets,
Though if I could do it myself I would,
A gruesome answer to the swelling need,
At seventeen, I knew that a surgeon should.

Cursing science, medicine, technology,
You turned the corner like some angry bitch,
That I never called you and didn’t think to,
Yet you were all too ready to catch that pitch.

I don’t know why you hate this way of being,
More than the one you struggled to fulfill,
We are the people our parents warned us against,
Yet you and I have more fighting to do still.

I wish you could understand each moment,
And yet I know you already do, so much so,
In the way I told you I was scared, I loved you,
In the way you pushed me away and said to go.