Miranda Poteet

They plucked us from turbulent waters,
and took us to their homes on pristine shores,
where the sun sets bloody,
and their hands even bloodier.

They stripped us of our tails and gave us wings instead.
They forced us in to the sky,
so they could curse us from the ground.

And how a crowd gathers under the death of a star to watch it glitter across the black night,
they watch us fall.

But comets are comets,
and the destruction of a person is never as beautiful.

Our feathers burn,
one by one,
and our corpses...

Sometimes I feel as if I was created in a lab.
I feel as if my bones were perfectly splintered into place,
grinding into my tender flesh,
cracking and breaking with every breath I try to take.

Sometimes I feel as if my heart was purposely made too big,
too wide,
too open.
They sewed it to my sleeve,
exposed it to the world,
instead of tucking it safely away beneath an ivory cage.

Sometimes I feel like I was made only to be broken,
over and over and over again.

And other times...

other times I feel as if I...

I have to remind myself that I was not born angry,
that I was not born with fangs or claws or sandpaper skin.

No.

My teeth and nails were sharpened by the stones you threw at me,
my skin shred apart by the serrated edge of your words,
your knives and swords.

I have to remind myself that I wasn't born into anger,
but rather I was forged into it.

And I have to scream how dare you!

How dare you rob me of my softness!
How dare you make me cruel!
How dare you turn me into a monster and then blame me for the...