She was
a pieced-together preposition
dangling off incomplete parents
unbraiding vibrant yellow and caramel ringlets
winging from her sun-kissed hair
She had
only to unlock her mother and father’s vessels’
fragile, fractured bones, full of adolescent scars
yearning to purge their marrow
and intertwine their spirit with her own
To become
a frayed epigram discarded
between sea and sky
upon ominous shadows
of abuse, evaporating into onyx waters—
gone before her wings unfolded,
never reaching her horizon