the first bruise

my mother said i was not beautiful.
she didn’t even say it like a tragedy…
she said it like weather.

she said,
“dark like a water buffalo
in a yellow field of mustard.”
like my skin was a mistake
the sun wouldn’t forgive.

she said i looked like a horse, too…
big teeth, big grin…
as if my mouth arrived loud
before the rest of my face
could learn manners.

no horse.
no water buffalo.
no something else she would’ve picked
just to make the metaphor stick…
a mule, maybe,
because mules don’t get to be pretty,
they just get to be useful
and quiet.

it’s true:
my teeth grew before my jaw could catch up,
little white piano keys
on a mouth that hadn’t learned the song yet.

it’s true:
she wanted me modest.
she wanted me interior.
she wanted me to focus on gifts
that didn’t pull attention
like a loose thread.

maybe she didn’t want me
to outshine the family lamp.
maybe she didn’t want a daughter
who made people look twice,
because twice can become trouble,
and trouble is the kind of thing
that brings men to your door
with smiles like crowbars.

good intentions, sure.
but good intentions
still leave marks.
so i went out into life
with her images stapled to my forehead…
horse teeth, buffalo dark…
and i started believing anyone
who thought less of me.

i sought them out.
i fed them.
i called it honesty.

i tried to overcompensate
the way the wounded do:
degrees, certificates, letters
stacked like clean dishes
i never got to eat off of.

i became impressive on paper
because paper doesn’t have eyes.
paper doesn’t tilt its head
and decide
you’re too much this
or not enough that.

then time did what time does…
it dragged the story out behind the house
and left it there,
and one day i went back
with enough distance, enough clarity
to see the thing as it was:

a mother afraid.
a mother trained by her own mother.
a mother using animals
because animals are safer than saying,
“i don’t know how to protect you
from being noticed.”

and i realized…
no horse.
no water buffalo.
no mule.
i am a stunning woman
with a gorgeous smile,
and it took years
to say that without flinching,
like it was a theft
instead of a fact.

i am married to someone
who thinks i am plain-faced.

that’s the joke, right?
you spend your whole life
trying to crawl out of one story
and you end up living
in another one
with no better furniture
and the same old light.

and then there’s my son.
handsome.
bright-eyed.
the kind of boy
the world will call “charming”
even when he’s wrong.

and the dissonance hits
because he has my smile.
my teeth.
that same early-arriving grin
like a sunrise
that doesn’t ask permission.

and he is no horse.
no water buffalo.
no mule.

and i know how it starts:
one sentence.
one casual comparison
tossed like a stone
into a child’s chest
to see what it does.

so i…
so i stop.
i bite down on the old language
before it can crawl out of me
and become his.

i tell him the truth
plain, clean, unpoetic…
the kind of truth
that keeps a person alive:

you’re beautiful.
you’re enough.
your smile is not a problem
to solve.

and when he laughs…
that big, whole laugh…
i let it fill the room
like it’s supposed to.

because if the world wants to be cruel,
fine.
the world has always been
a lousy mother.

but me?
i refuse to be the first bruise.