The Firefly's Letter To Lady Catherine

The first time
I met his grandmother,
she breathed
Older woman
Like dragon teeth,
Like blow out the fireplace
Cinders roaring down my back like
Spines of illicit novels.
They tell me her name
Was Fahrenheit 451
Before they tore her identity down
Like a banner advertising elections
In Cuba, circa Che Guevara.
She lived her life
In the past tense,
Gripping her morals
Like a purse
She expected you to rape
For the thrill of it.
And it's amazing
That I've never talked
About her before.

My clockwork lover,
how could you be expected to fight
such a poison,
her lace-covered fangs
Guard dog growling
That you had better watch out
For my type,
We're all alike.
Double Xs are always
Trouble on a willow switch.
She hissed that you should
shoot and aim to miss me,
because I was trouble.
No, I was perfectly polite,
my features were passable,
but she read too many spelling errors
in my genetic history books.
She wouldn't have her bloodline
clouded
by my thunderstorm of mutations.

My darling mockingbird,
I was the firefly heart
in a dark cave
that hadn't yet learned to fly,
or glow,
so I sat and let her whisper disapprovingly
about the crooked way I might one day
make babies talk,
walked away from the table
while the rest of them
crushed me beneath
their magnifying glass.
She took him aside
and told him
her loins will only produce
embarrassment on two legs.
When your children slither out
of her fertile land
like perfect vegetables,
you will see that the world is filled
with carnivores
and they'll eat you alive.
Society is a cannibal,
and you have provided them
with a meal unfit for their weakest links.
No, my child born from perfection,
you are no match for her hurricane,
no matter how lovely her stormy eyes are.

Get out while you still can.

You told me this in perfect

even
tones
as if the weather forecast held
as much hold on our future.

Our future,

which you had praised,
hands pressed together,
devout in your most romantic of religions

Love,

you are the most spiritually releasing
of all that ever shall be,
so bring me a baby not pockmarked
by her disease.
It lies dormant in her,
alley-cat aware and ever lurking,
save me from that evil eye
that I have not yet seen.

Child of pain made beautiful,

I wanted to watch you
Dive between cracks in
The pavement
For all the shame
You taste at the back
Of your throat,
Sandwiched between unrealized dreams
And built up bile
In your aortic sewer ducts.
Is my blood too thick
With predetermined madness
For you to swallow?
Our children will climb out of me,
rip themselves from my unfit body,
as they have wanted to do since
their conception
filled with love and rejection
in equal spoonfuls of sugar
taken like medicine for what
you think
is wrong
with
me.

Don't worry about
My genetic history,
Worry instead that
My rage fire
Will set your family tree
Aflame.
Worry instead that
there will be no other
porch swing arms
to welcome you home,
no luscious lips dripping in
pools of I'll do better next times,
I'll make something better,
I'll do you proud,
the next one won't be so loud
with how different he is
from every body else.

I promise,
next time,
I won't be the firefly
that shines this bright-eyed
and sad-lifed and
maybe, if I apologize enough,
you will let me
glow.