The 9 year old
In her favorite white dress
Sits on the bus;
Lace frills and chocolate stained teeth
Melting a childish lipstick onto her smile
As she refuses to cross her legs.
The inner girl in me smiles back,
Scabs open on my knees
and a bleeding heart.
I remember long hair
dancing across an A-line
Hidden under a raincoat;
And a stomach that wasn’t there,
Just a patch of blue in the eye line
To my yellow wellies.
Last week I gifted
A dress to myself.
No frills, but a lace overlay
And a small bow on my sternum.
The yellow-wellied smile peeked
her shorn head through the onslaught of my teenage years.
It felt like healing.
