The Foster Care System

It was my childhood that made me old,
by the time I was seventeen
I was digging up ungodly memories
that not even a forty year old would open
from their time capsule
because even they haven't lived that much
you see, I was a flower that grew
where it wasn't supposed to
like an anachronistic telephone booth in the Middle Ages
and then even an anachronistic telephone booth
in the twenty first century, maybe I never belonged
and maybe that's okay, if belonging is owning
but that doesn't mean i was a library book
shuffled between the fingers and beds of strangers
a thing, anyone could take with a free library card
but they did anyways,
And they tell you,
you, the flowers that grew where they were supposed to
in the wombs of mothers who wanted them,
in the suburban neighborhoods with potted plants
next door to the gentrified coffee shop that uses the same Miracle-Grow,
that the system is reassuring words like,
safe and secure,
they don't tell you that it is
vitiating and impotent
and not one of you makes sure.
So I dig up my ungodly memories
with fingers like crushed tulips
and thighs with bruises blooming up the sides
See, I was a flower that grew
where it wasn't supposed to,
and the system was a garden that grew around me,
and it grew gates, but didn't spend the time
to get rid of the snakes,
so there is no need to ask where
the wrinkles or the bitterness you taste when I make you tea
comes from, it is me,
and no need to ask why I don't smile
because the system broke my face in seven places,
but suburban neighborhoods don't want to hear that,
so I bury my ungodly memories instead of putting it in my file,
and the system would call that strong,
a true survivor,
when truly it is an ignorant spectator taking epiphanous art of the wall,
because we don't want to steer your attention
to unruly flowers like me,
because you have your own potted plants,
but not for a moment let yourself think,
that when the gardener says his blossoms are free,
that he didn't say that with a tongue that swallowed the key.
-anna sluder 

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