Sun-baked Nipples

Her only shoes were thorns
with rock-imprinted mud soles,
and a bare chest to absorb
the sunbaked feeling of eternal,
despite her body swelling unevenly
telling her childhood is not.
She revolted with tangled hair
and basketball shorts billowing
past ladylike and skinned knees.
Soon she would fold to them
with a towel over her face,
to shield hot breath that insisted,
“Pain is beauty,” with each hair,
hot breath said she was teased,
so she must protect her daughter
replacing nipples for bras, 
mud for makeup, anger for laughs.
The dirt washed down the drain
with the sunbaked feeling of eternal
with wind-blown anticipation,
to stand in line on cold floors
to sit in rows in square rooms
too dark and too bright at once
scrubbed and tamed and defeated,
with her own hot breath on her friend
as she pulls, for her, each hair.