The Matriarchy

was born in a hot boxed bathroom, standing naked,
making pouty faces in the mirror.
For her first show n tell
she cut her hair with safety scissors,
weeping in front of the whole class.
The Matriarchy was nicknamed Mary,
Daughter of Bernard Brown and Helena Saint.
Her father left the first time she threw a tantrum.
She threatened to use a matchbook as mascara
each day he didn’t answer the phone.
When her mother found lingerie in the laundry,
she assumed petty theft,
sent Mary to a Catholic academy upstate
with boys of wine teeth and dirty fingernails.
But they couldn’t
straighten
her out.
As a teen, Mary knew all the words to Patsy Cline’s Sweet Dreams.
She had flashcards with comebacks to catcallers,
a bell hooks poster on her ceiling,
and kept a Bukowski novel under her mattress.
Though it’d hurt her career if it got out.
Mary’s first real love was a gal named Eleanor,
capital ‘E’ still tattooed beneath her left breast in remembrance.
According to Mary’s journal,
they loved like an open safety pin
or broken timer.
Mary has had multiple run-ins with Death:
Walking home from the lateshift.
The time she told Brett Jackson she wouldn’t go to prom with him.
When she read too many beauty magazines and forgot to eat for a month.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2016

By Mila Cuda