Celeste (Visual Poem)

Brambles choke the farmhouse interior while antique frames tilt upon the walls. There are too many names for water. For your hands at my throat. We’ve been taught everything about our sex is wrong, how not to touch the canaries lying dead at the bottom of the cage. In the bathtub I push faceless dolls underwater, listen to them suffocate. Oh the trees that grow beneath my dress. The ghosts of dead children dance behind the teacups. Meanwhile the buttons on my blouse whisper their tales of safety pins. Of sewing scissors. I never had to be told I was worthless without beauty. The only thing left in me a rocking chair moving by itself. Back and forth. The black-haired girl staring down at the floor, waiting to lift her head and open her mouth. Scream.