Just Like Her

I was five and struggled 
to understand the relationship;

she was cousin to my mother 
but only a year older than me.

Why couldn’t I stay tidy, 
just like her?

Why couldn’t I keep clean,
just like her?

She had hair ribbons, shiny shoes
and a music box with a little ballerina.
 
I wanted one of those,
just like her.

So, when she gave me a blue-
flowered plastic bracelet

and whispered, ‘It’s our secret,’
I smiled and slipped it in my pocket.

She was my friend;
I was just like her!

Until she told my great aunt 
and my mother that I stole it.

Just like her.

Kim M. Russell, 15th April 2023

On Day 15, we are at the halfway point of NaPoWriMo and the optional prompt begins with reading June Jordan’s ‘Notes on the Peanut’, which we should use as inspiration. We should then think of people – real or imagined – who have been held up as examples of how to live, but about whom we have always had doubts, and write a poem that exaggerates the supposedly admirable qualities of them in a way that exposes your doubts.

I found the image on Etsy, the closest I could find to the bracelet.