Breadcrumb #210

MERCY TULLIS-BUKHARI

The façade was defined by a
man bleeding on wood,
and that façade created a
space between
acceptance and detachment—
where you will be cool,
if you were anything but you—
where children, who had just
seen their sperm and blood
had a false faith in their
nascent familiarity with adulthood.

Where you attached to those
beliefs that felt right
at the time, but—

My god, really, ran on
Maybelline red lipstick.

That one day, though, I, 
fatigued by the race of
running away from me,
you, inspired by
a guardian angel,

you said to me—

Hey, you know, you
are beautiful the way are.
I mean, you are pretty, 
regardless, but how you look,
just you—

You saw my born face, and
reassured me that the created
face was an illusion solely appropriate
for this masquerade party called
Catholic high school.
You weren’t that viejo sucio who sold
numbers on the corner, who always tried
speaking to me on some man-woman-level
shit. You were not that
19-year old, who lured me with
Pac-Man then conquered me with his penis.
You were not that kid riding on the
fallacious, so-called looseness
of a coquettish girl who smiled at all,
since attention from home was none 

You were…
well, this other kid—
the mother’s arms after birth—
who felt the path my pain could
have taken me.
The androgyny of the comment felt safe—
I wanted to fall backwards, now knowing
that my future, in its new path, 
would catch me and float my adolescence
into iron womanhood.

Did you walk on water, my friend?

You are the angelito, 
Telling me, all is well, little one.
All is well when you are just you

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