I think she smelled of coconut

On a dandelion you blew, wished me true and, in your middle, I grew You carved me an alcove in your soul and carried me through the winter Sleepless nights spent in your grandfather's rocking chair You whispered secrets you didn't think I could hear But we always had that telepathy What was that story you sang to me? Something about a princess and pea A girl who lost sleep because of her sensitivity Could you tell that much about me at three? Picking on peaches and honeydew, with your gardens I grew, tended, watered and learned by you Oh, how the time flew You gave me your smile and let me call it mine but it's been awhile and I only call a few times You gave me all your sun to make me bloom and now I can't remember the smell of your perfume I think she smelled of coconut? Tell me. Was I as beastly as I remember to be? I spat Used you as a doormat Ruled the home like some gross autocrat I don't blame you if you loved me less than Matt My words were darts poisoned at the tip but you just stood and took the hit And as I lit my final arrow your eyes said it Wiped my cheeks dry with your night shirt and understood it was because I had so much hurt I'd apologise but you'd say, "No need to write me an essay. I'm hungry. How about a take-away?" You were an angel in that way And I think I understand now When I see how girls younger than me are no different to when I was fourteen She sits in the back of the bus. Not feeling there's anyone she can trust I was only mad because you mirrored back to me the way people would soon be My internalised misogyny was frightened of the future your existence promised me Nothing is more desperate than my girlhood Her requests to be believed are no good She's on her knees for validation and haunts me like a ghost I kid myself isn't there I know it but she's yet to realise life isn't fair Mistreated her in my younger years and now cut from my life with a pair of garden shears Her appetite to feel real is sure suicide They don't love you once you've passed being bushy tailed and bright eyed Now its passed midnight and I'm down a glass shoe I played up to your angel ingenue But in secret saw the shapes My hips curving like the lakes where I would play in the water still young, still impressionable Still a manageable daughter Now I stand watching my reflection Inspections of my midsection leads to rejection and imperfection And my cover is blown My breasts and bone sold me out I'm fully grown Where I knit daisy chains is where they've laid my headstone Rest in peace pigtails and good girl syndrome You were the most vulnerable thing they've ever known Now I've never felt more alone Sylvia told me not to trust what the moon shows me It's light is deceiving and frantic, too romantic Better looking into the river, it will deliver something closer to the mirror But Sylvie was lost in her own ways We bottle women's pain into a cliché A sad but sexy, careful but free, not too angry and never ever ugly Be tragically beautiful, thats what they applaud for Like Ophelia, celebrated in flowers, floating near the shore Sometimes I stare so long at my reflection until my eyes sink I blink And I'm replaced with with an older weathered face Her smile is tired but kind And in her droopy eyes and solemn gaze, her reassurance is comforting I hold my palms up to the sun and through them shines the creases yet to come A thin-skinned future I suppose that's life's sense of humour Ageing might not be the tragedy that was told to me So every night I let the moon's light drink me in The air wipes me of my sin and where people couldn't, earth sees me Believes in me and I'm found And maybe it'll there in the warmth of the ground that I'm finally safe and sound