i like bows
i think they’re pretty
i desperately want to be pretty
my therapist says i tie bows on everything
i tangle them in my hair
pull them taut around my neck
and wrap my imperfections in lace ties until they are strangled into perfection
she says my bows are ruinous
that the knotted laces are inauthentic
that i use them to perfect all of me so I’m blameless
i’m supposed to learn to untie them, but how could i if they make me pretty
maybe bows will give me red lips or blue lids
or another feminine trope that i can cling to until i lose the last one
maybe bows will make me paper thin
and stretch skin over new bones of gossamer until
i am but a whisper of flesh
maybe bows will make me a real woman
one who would never let that happen to herself
because she’s better than me
maybe bows will heal the foursquare scrapes
etched into my conscious and they’ll offer me an
untainted religion
if i tie a bow in my hair, i wouldn’t have to swallow pills twice a day
no more routine sessions talking about nothing or
electrocuting my brain to jolt it into ceasing my
inclinations to swerve off the road
if i tie a bow in my hair, maybe I’ll forget that the
world is ending just as i’m starting
our mother isn’t burning and drowning
having a child isn’t condemning them
now brothers are better than cain and abel were
if i tie a bow in my hair, it doesn’t matter whether i’ve eaten this week
tasting salt from a tear stained face
tasting blood from my gouged lips
tasting bile from a volcanic throat
if i tie a bow in my hair, i might forget how his trespassing hands felt
still squeezing the air out of my throat
still ripping my insides into untimely bleeding
still soothing my cries of losing my girlhood
if i tie a bow in my hair, maybe shame won’t scream at my rusted gate
wailing about the sin an innocent kiss carries
howling over the faith that i dropped on pavement
shredding my skin into jagged ribbons
from which i’ll tie my bow and finally be pretty.