Before nineteen, the Devil's night bore me;

Each corkscrew turn of the year offering its back for me to cling to.

This dark mark, these trapped ghosts,

How they find the best places to hide:

The curved shape of this cupid's bow,

The fullness of this hungry mouth,

These eyes that beckon you to the water's edge.

How they will hold you down,

Pour these tears into your throat and watch you choke around the silver spoon,

Heart-shaped and sharp.

Sadness bubbles from my laughter,

Pops likes champagne against the cruel gate of my teeth.

Autumn, they call me; the season spun from ghosts and gold,

Where the mean things hide in the dark corners,

Wait with their waterlogged arms to pull me under.

Brooke, suddenly I am born a stream of blood;

They are staring at me through eyes made of pomegranates and stars,

Having to wonder which of would waltz upon the riverbank stinking of death.

They are frightened of me,

The beating rhythm of this broken heart,

So grand in my chest that there is room for nothing else –

And no matter my name,

Each person that comes to know me will call me love,

This sweeter pain.

They are frightened of me because I was born to hold them,

Crushed, in the palms of my hands,

Upturn them to the same moon that held my first cry.

I force them to listen to the things that they do not wish to hear.

I came from my mother's womb like death,

This ghost child, this ghost girl,

Locked into this world that would make of me a woman long before I was ready.

All rip and cut and blood and stitch,

I came into this world dying,

Lost the battle to the scars that slice across my face:

This cheek, this eye.

I touch them each day and remind myself that there will always be a piece of me missing.