hair's all shaved off,
and with it everything
that kept me from being my mother.
to bandanas and smudgy eyeliner
dad says: you look like she did.
sometimes i wish i knew
her the way he did.
buzzed head roller derby queen
stuffed in a miniskirt —
inked knuckles, inked face,
up for a drink, a spitting
image of a planet collapsing in,
a snake eating
its own tail. young,
wretched, wrecked.
Lucille Elliott is a senior who will be attending VCUArts in the fall. She writes about her experience as a child of an unconventional family and as a child of grief. She serves as Hampton Roads Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador of Sussex and has been published in ASGARD Literary Magazine, HAUNT, Living in Magick, two Virginia Writer’s Club Teen Nib Anthologies, and now Under the Madness Magazine. She has also been blessed with a Scholastic gold key for her writing portfolio, “latchkey kid.” You can find more work at @riotghoulrva.
"Muchas Bandanas de Muchos Colores ♥" by Sofía Salom is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
