You were weird
And quiet
And you might have been a beast

Your parents had prayed for an angel
When you arrived, spent and vacant
You opened your mouth
And no song rang out
Just a confused sort of yelp

You morphed into an eight-year-old human girl
Changed your clothes three times a day
Spun wheels of stories
Cried without sounds

Your mother said it was time to start showering
After coming indoor, greasy and breathless

Your father never looked at you the same
Once he caught your legs sprouting spikes of hair
He told his Wife to hand you the family razor

But you continued to smell like grass
Pretending the trees were friends
The dogs, your sisters

When you began middle school
You wrote love poems for your teachers
Tried out for basketball
They sent you to get tested for scoliosis
and the drool

But you howled the loudest in spring musical
Made fellow hairy friends
Who would later hunt you down

But snarled and unkempt
Starry-eyed and smelly

You kept
becoming

You are weird
And quiet
And you might be a beast.