Collateral Tales

I pretend to write books

But really I am one.

His hands pried open the covers of my lips

And wrote horror stories on the white papyrus of my baby teeth.

I’d never seen him read, really,

But he made fairy tale from my saliva,

Leaving me dying on a bedspread,

Confused as to whether I was the little princess

Locked in the tower of her own body

Or the colored witch no one took the time to love.

Opinions are of the poet. This poem was first published on Safecity.

Amanda Gorman, who volunteers for Safecity,is the Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of the United States and Founder of Onepenonepage.org. Her first collection of poetry, entitled “The One for Whom Food Is Not Enough”, was published by Penmanship Books in 2015, and her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and award-winning anthologies.