Carlina Moore

I
I came into this world with grown up teeth
and a sucked in stomach.
Mama told me I smiled for father and cried
when He wasn’t looking.

II
I am seven and I still believe in Him
so I put on Mama’s smile,
and she helps me squeeze
into a pretty pink dress to match my

pretty pink lips. Pretend not to see
marks stretching down legs
begging to be covered
because real women don’t look like me.

III
Thirteen years old, and I am dirt
under fingernails, fingering foundation bottles
for last drops. My baby face scarred and
my cheeks no longer blushed.

He won’t look at me when I pray
for a baby body. My hips are wide and my clothes
too tight for church. He makes me
cover up.

Father tells me it’s for my own good. I should listen
because He knows how men think.

IV
Mama doesn’t recognize herself
anymore. She grips her face in mirrors and mourns
her beauty. Mama is forty, and father is tired
of women his age.

–

Carlina Moore is a rising junior at Wilbur Cross High School and ECA Center of the Arts in New Haven, Connecticut. She comes from a rich background of artists and poets from Argentina, and plans to study creative writing in college. Most of her work is focused on womanhood and her relationship with her mother, as well as sexism, with hints of coming of age themes. Moore hopes to continue to live her life through poetry, finding beauty in everything around her, and always thinking and feeling deeply about the world around her.