Nature vs. Nurture

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.”