My father is the thick rind of a melon,

bitter armor warding off

a hungry girl with only her fingers

to cut with.

My mother I must scrape

like an unforgiving orange

cutting deep into my cuticles

and beneath my nails.

They play at ripeness and sneer

when I bite

but not you.

Not you, little grape that they made,

little round, bald, shiny grape.

They could stay up all night

trying to peel you, oh so

carefully with the edge of their teeth

to preserve the lump of sweetness

that is a new baby boy

while I wait red and bursting

like a ripe apple hidden in the leaves

of a forgotten tree.

For your greedy mouth

my father is the thick skin of the tangelo

and the fruit inside that sheds its peel

to offer you its sweetness.

To my mother you must only whine

and she will skin herself

to soothe your taste buds

with her last wedge of flesh,

forgetting that only a few seasons ago

my juicy gurgle made them coo

as if they themselves were babies

because beside a bundle like you

of no bruises and no words

I am rotten

and each day I grow

is another worm through my skin.

This poison is not for you,

but you must drink it

and make them cry that their ugly little apple

had such sickness in her seeds,

cry as if they were babies

when they have no babies left,

and sit alone with their hardened skins,

wishing they had birthed some other fruit.

My father is the thick rind of a melon,

bitter armor warding off

a hungry girl with only her fingers

to cut with.

My mother I must scrape

like an unforgiving orange

cutting deep into my cuticles

and beneath my nails.

They play at ripeness and sneer

when I bite

but not you.

Not you, little grape that they made,

little round, bald, shiny grape.

They could stay up all night

trying to peel you, oh so

carefully with the edge of their teeth

to preserve the lump of sweetness

that is a new baby boy

while I wait red and bursting

like a ripe apple hidden in the leaves

of a forgotten tree.

For your greedy mouth

my father is the thick skin of the tangelo

and the fruit inside that sheds its peel

to offer you its sweetness.

To my mother you must only whine

and she will skin herself

to soothe your taste buds

with her last wedge of flesh,

forgetting that only a few seasons ago

my juicy gurgle made them coo

as if they themselves were babies

because beside a bundle like you

of no bruises and no words

I am rotten

and each day I grow

is another worm through my skin.

This poison is not for you,

but you must drink it

and make them cry that their ugly little apple

had such sickness in her seeds,

cry as if they were babies

when they have no babies left,

and sit alone with their hardened skins,

wishing they had birthed some other fruit.

Old movies used to tell me that childhood for a girl was trying on your mother’s make-up, sitting next to her at a vanity while she reached for tubes and bottles and unfolded their secrets on your little face. With long, slender arms she would sling ropes of pearls around your neck and hold your hand, leading you forward, forward, until you grew into the clunking pair of heels you loved to steal from her overflowing closet.

I had nothing to steal, though, but an obligatory jade bracelet from Grandmother rattling on your thin arm. I could have stolen the ring from your finger, your fingers that could make a piano sing and made your daughter cry when she missed a note, but the diamond would have turned to a pocket full of stones weighing down my young fantasies of a husband until they drowned in the reality of the broken marriage I watched each day. My feet slid helplessly in oversized shoes you bought because they were on sale but you never helped me grow into anything but a fear of my femininity. When I sat next to you at your desk, I was asking, pleading, but you unfolded pages of math problems instead and taught me I should never let my face subtract from my brain in case I added up to something a boy would want. The birthday gifts from friends of glittery make-up and nail polish went into storage until you could give them to my girl cousins for their birthday presents. Silly, girly distractions for silly girls—not for smart ones like me, who should be as much like a man as she can if she wants to be taken seriously.

You made me rewrap the very things I wanted to tear open and decipher. You made me bind them tight in ribbon, like the hint of breasts that I bound in Scotch tape to hide how much I could never be your prodigal son. I only wanted to hold your hand and have you lead me forward, forward, towards anything. And you slung a rope without any pearls around the neck of all my questions and locked up the secrets of womanhood in an empty armoire.