Kimora Hornbeak Poet Free verse

Dress-Up

My knuckles are as coarse as dried mud
And could even make their own blanket.
My hands turn to wet paper
Wrinkles, refusing to snap back.
I chew my nails down to blood
Till it coats the surrounding skin
And I chew on that, too
Leaving an open, raw wound
And a sore that I refuse to heal.

I let the hair on my legs sprout
Into a thick, tangled man-brush
Until someone calls me one.
Even then,
I hover in hesitation
Because nobody has to bear it but me.

I refuse the heat,
The chemical straightener,
I let my hair be a wild, curly nest,
Sometimes I don’t touch it at all.

I walk out 
In my bonnet that smells like oil,
Hello kitty pjs ripped at the seam that I have to cover,
Walmart bear shoes
With the print of my feet at the bottom.
I forget to wash my face,
And the oil settles in,
But people think I look clean.

But I’ll conceal my undereyes
And my smile lines– the ones I earned
By my manic episodes where I can’t stop laughing.
Next is my cheeks
So I can hide the acne, picked raw,
The red angry dots I couldn’t leave alone.
And then I put lipstick on my pig face
Even though It’s greasy, sticky,
And I look like a circus’ main show.

Maybe I’ll dot on fake moles, 
Whenever I find that dried-up eyeliner somewhere
In this trash heap room.
Clothes choking the corner,
Closet door yawning open, jammed,
Because I’ll fold everything in three months.
I can’t tell the laundry from the floor.
The dresser top is a graveyard of plates,
Curdled forks, spoon-scum, and a crusty pot.
Even if my room is next to the kitchen,
It’s too far to walk.
I stay in the dark, rotting in bed
Until the guilt shuts me down.
Talk for a few minutes
To prove I’m still a functioning human,
Then go back to drowning
When everything gets too loud.

And it sounds like I am courting this ugliness
Like I enjoy breaking my heart.
But I stand before the mirror
And I pay every toll.
An hour of tears,
One for every soft roll that dares to appear,
One for the frantic, strange twitch
Trapping my mouth,
One for the gaps between my teeth
That scream “boy” at me,
One for my chin that’s strong
And not soft like the angels near me,
One for my jawline
That hides from every angle,
One for every hair I claw from my arms.

Because I want to be a girl.
I want to be a girl so badly it tastes like fiberglass in my throat.
And I fail.
I fail even at that.

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