By Misti Velvet Rainwater 
Date: 18 August 2000

Oh, Ophelia

             fifteen was exquisite
                and cool as
                   death
             and it was hard to
                  breathe
            in my Snow White skin

             fantasies covered me up
              and hid the path
            that led to the candy cottage
               in my tangled woods

               I was alone but
                  completely
              lunches were spent
              in a bathroom stall
            I wrote Misti Wasn't Here
           on the wall with blue mascara

                Jordan Jones liked me
                but I didn't like me
                I threw pebbles at
                Jon Mark's window
                and willed him to
                whisk me off to Bennigan's
                for a hot fudge sundae

         from Sunday to Saturday I was as lovely
                as I would ever be
         a haunted heroine softened with
                anemia and asthma

                at modeling school they told me
            You're Good...You've Got it...Don't Blow it

but I was blowing away
'cause I was made of paper
I was gone
whirling with fury
on an invisible planet

                   fresh from the shower one day I fell
                     and my step-father heard
                   my head connect with the linoleum
                    but I told him I was fine
                   and I went to bed and heard
               a train roaring outside the wall
                  ...later I learned that the train
                was really my heart
          
but they fixed me
and I came out more or less
on top
a decade
later
what with poetry
and karaoke
and candy whenever the fuck I craved it
and love like glitter
on a daycare floor
all over the place
and hard
to sweep away.
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