She used to touch lips with umbilical corded bliss.
Just to feel the unborn feeling of something so bold.
I used to outline her in chalk.
Just to cut her veins from the vines.



I wanted her to live.



&.



She used to pinpoint me with pushpins.
And I used to hang on her wall like magazine photos.
She kept me in a glass case at times.
Beauty never seeped through these veins.




I never lived.



She sucked drink from a bottle.
I watched her wallow to the floor.
Smudging lipstick on her lips. Violet.
Like her wrists. Like her wrists.




“Play dress up with me,” she’d say.




I wanted her to feel beautiful.




She used to scratch color from my cheekbones.
As if rosy red would look better on her.
But she chipped my fair porcelain with her nails.
Scarring me with tissue, fixing me with ribbons.



&.




I wanted to feel beautiful.





She used to. She used to.
Until she lost me in the garden while I was buried in Lilacs.
And she was buried in Lavender.
And all I saw were her eyes, crying for something more than life, more than beauty.




Love.





Something a broken doll could never give.


&.




I wanted to feel loved.