i’m a big kid now

LITR0110B: Poetry I

Date: 2/2025

Assignment: Write a self portrait poem. How to attempt a self portrait in words is up to you.

i’m a big kid now

Everyone wants a tan until you’re
Fifteen minutes late for a flight and soon to be twenty-seven
Because your last name flags the Bible in your father’s duffel bag as a bomb 

Or until you’re trying on your mother’s makeup for the first time
Crying, mascara paving lines down your chubby little cheeks
As her concealers and foundations and blushes and contours just
Don’t look the same on you

Nothing’s showing up the way it’s supposed to
She’s pressing harder and harder into the palette but it’s just not
Showing up the way it’s supposed to

The concealer she dabs over your first pimple just between your brows
Results in an egregious white dot
Further highlighting the imperfection
(It’s because your grandmother wears a red one)
And the bronzer she swipes in the hollow of your cheeks remains
Invisible 

What was intended to be a bonding moment between mother and daughter
Tended to the first seeds of a growing divide
And the roses emerging through and between and within these
Cracks in the concrete
Will be cultivated by your tears

She frantically brushes the powders and creams away
She brushes your teardrops and worries and hair from your eyes
It’s curlier than hers. Thicker. Darker
But it’s hers because it’s yours so it’s really all one and the same

Mama, it’s okay
Mama, I’m just not old enough yet
Mama, it’s because my skin is smooth and it doesn’t work on me right now
Mama, I’m okay

Mama takes a tissue and before dapping it across your cheekbone
Touches it, softly, to her own eyes