16/30

Even before you were able
To fully emerge
From your protective cocoon
Of baby fat
And pastel pink swaddling
There were grown men
Lusting
Testing strength of all manner
Of tether and chain link
Compromising boundaries
Constructed to keep you out
Of harms way
More than an arm's length worth
Of laws were enacted
To protect your flesh 
From paws and fangs
But these men
Can't rest properly
Until they have 
Touched you innappropriately

They were choking themselves
On their collars
Jumping their fences, rabid
Once they picked up
Cotton candy scent of girl
Fluttering above the baseline
Of a tattle tale breeze
They couldn't stop the razors
In their mouths
From flashing
Couldn't extinguish
A growl sparking
In the back of their throats

Tragic endings in our
Ugliest folklore never 
Hinted at this manner of savage
Didn't paint images of the broken bodies
Young women will be trapped in
After they have been hunted
We were unaware that a child
Could elicit such a reaction
Never knew female 
Could cause
Such a frenzy
Just by being born

Little girls don't understand
Anything about "sexy"
A language
Foreign and unnecessary 
Stilt legs, uncoordinated 
8 pm bedtime sleepy eyes
And breath with
The stench of milk
Clinging to new teeth
Like a memory

Even before you were able
To fully emerge 
From your protective cocoon
Of baby fat 
And pastel pink swaddling
There were men imagining
All of your private parts
Laying awake, waiting for you
Enginering erections in your honor
When your mother hadn't even
Decided what she wanted to
Call you
Claiming you
Before you knew
Who you were
They have scheduled your abduction
Timed it according to
Your birthday
The pulse of their footsteps
The amount of times they knocked
Before the door swung open
How often they looked
In the neighbor's window
Before the urge grew too wild
To wrangle
A chapter and a verse
Some other arbitrary number
Anything to attribute meaning
Justify everything wrong
They will blame you
When really
It's what they wanted to do
Long before you 
Stopped believing in Santa Claus

There isn't a chord in a song
That flips the undisturbed switches
When played in reverse
There is no camera angle 
In a film scene that lights 
A psychological fuse
There is no magnet in the well
Of your belly
You are not a star
Collapsing into itself
You simply
Didn't know your period
From a comma
Confused it for a tadpole 
In Times New Roman type face
Wedged between words
To slow the pace 
Of a run on sentence
That you did not co-author
You cannot pump the breaks
When your feet won't 
Reach the petals
Your mother's womb
Was no green house
So, no wonder you never got 
A chance to bloom
Sunlight didn't get ahold of you
Before an uncle's hands did
We can't handle it
Adults expect you to know as much
As they do
When you are not yet ready 
For these lessons

On a standardized test
You were asked to
Classify the part of speech
Under which the word "preditor" falls
You had no answer
And we respond with 
More than an arm's length worth
Of laws, illequipped to catch you
Tight roping alone 
You navigate the long walk home, 
Daily
While vultures halo
Over your head
A slow moving mobile
Above the cradle of a middle school 
Playground and soccer field
It is 2 pm 
And you are not even 
Dead, yet