Teeth in the Back of My Neck by Monika Radojevic

Author:Monika Radojevic [Radojevic, Monika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781529119084
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2021-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

THE NECK

* * *

You Always Saw Yourself in a Cape

You have caught me; and now

I have to look you in the eye with the deepest of sighs

and tell you things are worse from that time –

that time you flew around the playground, bruised knees, clenched teeth,

pretending to be a superheroine, a Miss Incredible,

you who wanted to play Hermione in the Eden of the make-believe

but couldn’t bear that she wasn’t

the protagonist of the story (you always saw yourself in a cape).

So, you made Harry a girl and argued fiercely at the world,

the Lyra Belacqua of the migrant house,

constantly in trouble

for not doing what you were told.

You who organised classroom rebellions with hair still sprouting

proudly on your legs,

you who told strangers you’d rewrite the world

(back in the weightless time when

you knew you would).

You were the Violet Baudelaire of your own empire,

mischievous, agile, unapologetic

without having to be told.

(Why is it that most women want what most girls lose?)

I wish I still ran with the wind beneath my wings

the way you did that time.

(If only I could bottle your precocious self-adoration into a perfume

to dab behind my ears –)

I think maybe you’d be disappointed somewhat,

by my new Quiet and my new Conformity

(self-doubt is a language you didn’t speak back then).

You’d tell me I am wrong to see the world the way the grown-ups do

(what do they know, after all).

You’d be so thrilled at the glow of me now,

this I know, because I know you well.

You’d look at me with an awe that I don’t see,

and tell me to pick myself up off the floor.

I think overall

you’d be impatient

with my own humbleness and my own desire to be better look better

love better –

I don’t think you’d recognise the sour aftertaste

of perceived inadequacy.

You always saw yourself in a cape.

And when you ruled this body,

you knew you were the best.

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