Shapeshifter Poem by Tara Teeling

When the blue sky is masked
by joyless swells of grey,
and my breath is captured
in buoyant, white puffs,
I think of a dead November
and a girl I no longer know.

It was a frigid, Monday morning
when, in the incarnation of
an awkward, chubby pre-teen,
I rounded the playground,
welcoming the break of day
through pewter clouds,
keeping cadence with
the soft parade of girlhood.
I was grateful for my kindred sister,
with lemon-smeared curls
and seawater eyes; a best friend,
who by virtue of existence
gave life to self-esteem.

We’d bonded over a mutual love for
pretty boys in mascara, feelings of
inadequacy and deep disdain
for mathematical equations.
There’d been no hint
of a forked tongue or fangs.
This was to come later.

I was sheathed in steel
and filled with spirit when
we were two as one.
We would trace our steps
around the baseball diamond,
stamping the plate with rubber-soled shoes,
aching to leave our mark.
In my girlish innocence,
I’d failed to notice
the sinuous tracks that grooved
in the dirt behind her as she moved.

That November morning,
as I neared the playground wall,
a new girl had my place.
Around them rolled an aura of smugness,
which betrayed some sour design,
and they smiled,
silently boasting a secret between them
as I heard the sounds of slithers
in the sickly, yellowed grass.

I stood silent, a point
in an awkward triangle,
knowing what loomed in the air.
The leaves swirled about menacingly,
weightlessly floating, like
discarded reptilian casings.

My kindred sister had lips that glittered,
and her eyes were hemmed with black.
Her plump, puerile face was now
chalky and oval, and her
newly cut cheeks were slapped
with the cold blood
of late-autumn mornings.

She had shifted shape,
morphed into a pubescent demi-goddess,
and I was still bauble-haired and artless;
a square who got stuck in the mouth
of round holes.

My expulsion was like the pop of a balloon.
The air hissed out,
in long, pleading whimpers,
as the two of them reveled
in twisted, animal triumph,
and the old skin lay shed
upon the pavement.
I wondered how
I could not have known
that a twelve-year-old could cackle.

On that cruel day,
I never heard myself hit the ground.
I did not feel the scraping of my knees
or the bruising of an already tender psyche.
I scarcely remember how I picked myself up,
or how I walked away.

The scars remain, though slightly faded,
but they argue against
the resilience of children
just the same.
Only I know they are there;
the jagged reminders of
a biting lesson once learned
on a playing field.