This is, like you'll find most of my poetry to be, a little on the lengthy side, because I am simply not gifted with the talent of Short Version-ing ANYTHING, as my former teacher would say. But this piece is, as you might guess, about my much beloved aunts. It's also kind of about how awesome my mommy is. Enjoy.

Whispers, stabs, jabs
They
Tear at the fabric
Unraveling my sanity.
My mother is a seamstress
Pulling threads together,
Working them
Into her own frayed edges.
These words shouldn't wound
But a bond of blood
Turns them to scissors,
seam rippers. Sisters
Daughters of my mother's mother,
Like Cinderella's evil stepsisters.
I'm the dress
As they pull me
To pieces.
"Just like ya momma,
All ya taste is in ya mouth."
Her insult is an over-hot iron
Burning its impression
Into my tattered remains.
Who are you
To say this?
You who spawned
A demon horde
Spit venom
At my mother's peaceable brood.
Only her cooling touch,
Iceburg spring over molten lava
Sizzling flesh
Can cool me to
A point
Where I no longer burn others
With a touch.
We revel in the
Steam.
Watch it cloud,
Billow
Around us
Muffling
Dulling the edges
Of sisters' scissors.
My mother is a seamstress
Weaving patches
Into my ripped parts.
Together, we
Are whole.