Amanda

You reserved yourself for the longhaired angsters,
Needing them to rip and to tear you apart.
It made you feel like art,
Cosmopolitan pictures with the self-esteem ripped out.
You were the strip mine for the magazine collages
You tried to make out of your relationships.

Overandover you told yourself,
And yes, you felt--more sometimes
Then you ever thought you could bear.
You fell and felt yourself fall and shatter
Like china your mother kept (and later threw),
So you could see in your reflection
The precious but fragile art your mother knew you to be
When she held you for the first time
While you could only cry.

4/21/93 rev. 6/6/93