By Misti Lake
Date: 5 February 2001
Ballet
my darling girl
in your latest video
you dance around in a pink tutu
and try to walk in your little plastic high heels
and squeal with delight when you open up your dress-up kit
all the pretty eyeshadows and lipsticks
so you're learning what it is to be female
in the South
perform! charm! be pretty for the camera!
oh, no
keep swimming
and sticking up
for yourself
and sing the songs better
than they
were written
don't let them put you in beauty pageants
don't think too highly of Ariel and Cinderella and Snow White
I pray you won't be poisoned
but I know it's too late
it's okay, I tell you
I was poisoned, too
I bloomed late
learned the cuss words and how to frown and how to say NO
long after I knew I'd never aspire
to be a ballerina
it's an awful ballet
a beautiful blasphemy
the mirror shatters and you make it all new
in the image of you
I see the long forgotten me
in your bewildered innocence
I see so much it tears me up
for I can't protect you
I can't change the world for you
there will always be an avid audience
and a long walk to freedom
people will splash water in your eyes
in their tiny pools
bullies will think up common ways
to make you feel less than what you are
but know that as long as your birth mother is on this earth
I am trying and crying and pulling
for you.
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