tough geyser
Twelve
Someone wound the key
when she was small enough
not to know what keys were for.
A turn to the left
and she began to spin.
Pointed toe.
Lifted chin.
The tiny melody climbing out
of the place where her ribs should be.
She did not choose the song.
She learned to love it anyway
the way you learn to love
the only warm thing in a cold house.
By seven she could hear the music slowing
and wind herself before anyone noticed.
By ten she had stopped waiting
for anyone to notice.
She spins in the box
while the lid comes down.
She spins in the box
while the voices find each other
in the rooms below,
the particular violence of adults
who have forgotten
there is a child in the house
still turning, still turning.
The cracks came quietly at first.
A hairline fracture at the jaw
from smiling too long in one direction.
A split along the collarbone
where she had held her shoulders back
for years without being asked.
She did not stop spinning.
The porcelain gives
the way porcelain gives,
not all at once
but in the places
that were asked to hold
the most.
And underneath the white
something pink and frightened,
something twelve years old
that has never been allowed
to stand still long enough
to fall apart properly.
She keeps the melody going.
She keeps the pointed toe.
She keeps the lifted chin
above the crack that runs
from her left eye to her mouth
like a road that leads
somewhere no one
has ever thought to go.
The box winds itself now.
Has for years.
She would not know silence
if it came for her.
She would probably
start spinning anyway,
just to fill it,
just to give the empty air
something to watch
so it does not have to look
at her.
raven vigil