Shaniqua

The scrunchie that adorns your wrist was once
a flower in your hair, so softly there
its petals must have seemed reflected suns
within its stream, prismatically enflared.

You smile at My Atrocious Dream, perhaps
my future charms as does your past, you wonder
perhaps what it will be, my dream, this lapse
in my surety, this spell I'm climbing under.

As you hand me my change, I understand
that you and I are both part wild, we roam
with claws unsheathed and scar the wilderland--
For that dark part there is no place like home.

So you make use of scrunchies, I of tapes,
anything to hold ourselves in place.

Author's Note: My Atrocious Dream is a German film (Mein Vanciestinken) inspired by The Wizard Of Oz, the part of Dorothy being played by Dolph Lundgren. Although unable to evoke the vulnerability of the original character, in some ways he actually brought more femininity to the role. I was particularly impressed by the gentility he displayed while trying to pat out the scarecrow's flames.

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