Nature vs. Nurture
Is there anything worse than being uptight?
As a child, when I first became interested in beautiful things,
I begged my grandmother to let me stay
in the room she filled with China dolls
whose door was kept locked.
I was allowed in only with her by my side,
never permitted to run my hands across their lacy skirts
or stroke their rosy cheeks.
Finally, after years of begging
She left the room unlocked for me.
That night I couldn’t sleep
with their marble eyes fixated
on my every movement.
There is a certain tenseness
I noticed when laying out on her pea green carpet watching her sit
in a velvet armchair
back straight
jaw clenched
feet flat on the floor.
It flows down through generations,
manifesting in my own mother
who would swat my chubby fingers away from mirrors and picture frames
and anything else that could be smeared by my touch.
Sometimes, I feel it too.
An icy dagger in my spine
sternly whispering “that’s enough.”
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