She bred authenticity.
Taught it to walk,
and cradled its colicky self
before she tucked it in.
Its favorite mobile sang the classics,
but she would hum inflections
and falsetto to her heart’s desire.

It grew into a whiner.
Remembering stinging pinches
and verbal lashings before
reaching for disciplinarian arms.

Years later, it grew an attitude;
rolling eyes and slick tongue
matching phosphorescent outfits
and mini-wedges, boosted above
snotty noses and dusty knees
and the disapproving glances of Mrs. Where Has The Time Gone.

Between suffocating bouts of adolescent ignorance,
it sprouted butterfly mentality
fleeing the nest—misfiguring wonders of the world,
falling into the open arms of disappointment,
selfishness, and monthly statements: 
unable to capture yesteryear’s spontaneous predecessor,
the outspoken ignorance, now, locked and stored
under rejection’s daily renewal.

Stiletto-constructed façades reinforced
brick wall smiles among the current of pretty faces,
longer legs, and looking at carbon copies’ shoulders
sheathed in neutrality’s gray,
popping understimulated eyes and pants.

It stagnated,
suppressing the diva decade wrought.

Spin cycles and crises later,
Authenticity lifted her eyes to the hills.
With no help and twin whiners at her legs,
she had no choice,
guarding and holding up everything.