Cold porcelain memories

Dreams, emptied, staring back at me

In the True State they were in back then:

Vile, lifeless —

Acid dreams in porcelain

I remember way back

When I played

When the sun Stayed

That hot cement

We’d throw our pool towels down on it

Lie on our stomachs — dripping wet

Stare at each other excitedly

As if we Knew some Secret Thing

(Something I’ve long since forgotten)

The cool breeze blew over our little-girl backs

With our little-girl secrets and our little-girl laughs

I sometimes wish I could go back

But the memories feel like dreams

Cut to:

The little-girl Blues

I’d stay in my cold, little-girl room

Crying and crying til my eyes met with sleep

Battling possession in my little-girl dreams

The boys at school all made fun of me

I remember how he would say I was

Flat as a Board

Stupid

Fucking ugly

A fat fucking bitch

I remember when the girls laughed

I didn’t know why

I just knew I wasn’t wanted

I wasn’t cool

Tried to fit in

In that suffocating school

Somehow always felt like a fool

Who didn’t ever have a clue

Of what it took or meant to be cool

At home I was told

Don’t let them know

The pain that you feel

They want that, you know

So I hid all the pain

Like a duck – let it roll – but

Life was not taking a little-girl toll

Something closed up in me one day

Quite permanently

I don’t remember the first time I threw up

But I knew I had found

Something for Me

Something to speak when I could not speak

I remember way back

When I played

When the sun Stayed

When I did not know the meaning of Shame

I can hear her laughter now

Little girl, little girl

Please come back out.