Like Dogs

I wish I knew how to make myself bee what you want me to be.
That it was uncomplicated, that my thoughts weren't rigid, that I didn't sign myself a daughter of Judas, that I knew how more than I know why.
I wish I knew what it was to be your daddy 'cause I think I might've loved you better than I can love you as a woman, all flat-chested and awkward-limbed.
That I remembered I forgot, that I had a raven on my shoulder to whisper what I've lost.
I wish I was seventeen again, so I could cut off my hair instead of paint it and take myself to a nunnery before inviting sin in.

I wish my thighs weren't fat enough to suffocate.
That my fingers didn't get all clammy when finding a home.
I wish I could swallow three-syllable words without choking.
I wish I'd lost my virginity in your pumpkin patch.
That those people dead got to give the Christmas gifts they'd hidden in the closet.
I wish I hadn't liked so much to kiss men's knees.
That when I tried to catch up with the future, my fingers didn't get snapped back. I wish I knew the bits missing from the Bible.

I wish my house wasn't a boulder on a hill.
That I hadn't pawned my claws for an old tickle-mouse hat.
I wish I didn't find men handsome.
I wish I'd learned how to multitask, so I could sing and fly both at once.
That my teeth didn't clatter when my mother screams.
That I could outrun grandfather's shadow.
I wish my body worked like other people's, that things didn't insist on breaking.

I wish I knew how to tilt these letters backwards.

I wish I didn't have to lie under beds to know if they're thinking of me.
I wish my nose didn't bleed.
That I could hold down breakfast, that my finger didn't leave dents between my bones.
I wish I was a tree, but I know then they'd cut me down and drag me away while my father screamed for me.
I wish I knew how to make something that was neither silly nor sad.
That my writing didn't betray my inexperience.
I wish I were a gypsy ghost.
I could leave and not look back.
That I could moor myself to the lamppost without it starting to pour the next minute.

I wish I didn't like so much getting lost inside my own imagination.
I wish I'd never run with the wolves.
I wish I was brave. Or at least, chicken enough to not smell my own cowardice.
That it wasn't my fate to die in the mud.
For you not to look out the window if that meant seeing a dog who couldn't run fast enough.
I wish I knew to make something of my life if I'm not gonna make anything of yours.