Kate LaDew
shopping
I hold my belly (because something
not small, something not flat, something not smooth,
something so not is a belly)
jangles like keys
like a distraction held up for children
I am not beautiful
barrier
it hurts a little to know you’re out
there
smiling at everyone
innocent
it hurts a little
like a scar
like that little scar between my thumb and index finger
nearly lopped it off
breaking that flower pot against the window to get back in
it’s only a little thing
but tough
raised
I can feel it like a barrier
keeping my hands from being beautiful
I press on it when I’m nervous
remember how cold that dirt was
how I sat for thirty minutes before I stopped bleeding
and you never came over
I knead it and it won’t go smooth
just keeps living in me like a smile I can’t forget
It’s not that I want you again
It’s not that I hate you
I just wish I could open the paper, find out you died and
finally be happy.
1000 thread
count
I want to be beautiful.
I want to wrap around like a strip of peach in an abstract
painting, abstract like thoughts
are abstract, abstract like God, abstract because what do you
name it? what is it supposed
to mean?
I call myself beautiful, like a
little girl with a florid name, a hopeful name, it means
God’s love, it means gift, it means you will be lovely, I name
myself and grow and grow
and look nothing like what my parents wanted, wrapping around
like a brush stroke
of dirty peach, like people standing back and saying hm? I
don’t know what you’re
supposed to mean
Kate
LaDew is a recent graduate from the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro with a BA in Studio Art.
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