Sun-Kissed Bruises by Lori Khadse (17, New Jersey)*

My eyes are sunbleached;
when my mother isn’t looking,
I stare directly into the sun,
because I refuse to deny something
so searingly bold of what it begs for
everyday.
Everyday,
reborn at high noon, I’m
draped in warmth, 
something organic and so utterly human.

---

It skirts on the edge of my voice,
up-skirted like a derelict photograph.
With my skin pressed against the heat,
I wear sunshine like a 
sundress, swathed in shadows 
and highlights,
beams of light dangling from my ears.
I’m beaming because I think I look beautiful.
I exist like a doll in a world of 
red ribbons and white lace,
glass fingertips and a 
porcelain face.
I see a prince charming 
in every boy who will 
idolize my cryptic eyes
yet criticize my battle cries,
a mother in every
aunt who will bend my
fragile fingers backwards,
break them into her own.
The air around me is drenched
in perfume, bleeding
from sunbeam stab wounds.
The aftertaste of secrets 
still strong on my tongue,
and the hot, scalding letters 
still branded on
my cheek. Zipper teeth
must run in the family,
pretty dolls with thin lips,
pretty dolls with ragged limbs,
with tattoos and birthmarks and sunspots
we’ve bleached to avoid attention, bleached
to avoid internal confliction,
because
I know all that I really am,
is just a really, really overused metaphor,
dying 
for affection.

​