face, or, fate.

when you look at me that way,

you look at a stray in need of a home

and someone's love,

if you paid attention to my face,

you'd see a hint of skeptic glare:

stop your sympathy,

stop your care;

lay me down 

and feed me cyanide. 

many people have looked

to fill their quota for 

good samaritans go to heaven,

greedy to do a good deed,

packaging words like magic pills 

that would

ideally

last forever.

they never read my face 

the way i want them to,

but maybe (says mirror)

this face grows uglier

the longer you look.

poor mother, to see 

her daughter become me.

can't be loved if 

you aren't pretty, but mother

never had that worry, 

had those boys chasing

quietly 

goddess of all untouchables.

she'd chosen a smarter man 

who could not love her 

the way she wanted to be loved, 

for he was lovely in a different way.

and like a princess trapped 

she cried, and tears drowned

her firstborn, lost in existence:

died before it cried a sound

or coughed once in air.

and thus the angered God decided 

mother's next and only

child would live a similar fate

lost in existence

before her eyes had opened,

frightened in the womb

and born with fear of life.

she would eat apples with a love 

for their bitter seeds,

tread waters 

with impulse to drown,

hold knives with blood 

dreams and sad things.

if you'd read her face and understood,

you would have heard 

her smiling eyes 

gurgling as they drowned:

lay me down

and feed me cyanide.