For the hair on the tops of my feet,
the frayed skin around my finger nails,
and times I have waited like a crock pot. 

This is an apology. 
This is an apology for all the times I've 
cut my hair to be smooth and small like a stepping
stone-- for cementing shards of
broken Pale Ale bottles into my forehead just
for you to walk on your way to the back door--
(I wait for you like a crock pot of chili or that misaddressed postcard
from the grand canyon that only reads 'I loved you')
put your bottle caps over my eyes--
and cut my hair just to bleed from the tops of me feet--
wrapped them up in my dinosaur socks.

I've been the welcome mat.
I've been a broken Samuel Adams--
I've been bottle caps biting at my heel bone 
in the yard--
I've been the snapped neck of
the rotted willow tree where ten-year-olds
dare each other to kiss their best friends.
I've been a summation of pieces of this body
I've cut and sent down a drain--
the curly smiles of finger nails and
graceful decent of each strand of eyebrow
I've uprooted like carrots to try to make myself
into a work of topography.
I've been the frayed skin around my finger
nails that splits and sparks like
chewed electric wires-- frayed--
fractured and gnawed like the knees
of all my jeans after they've seen summer. 

I'm here to apologize for not remembering
I've been a garden on the tops of my
feet. I grow toad stools now
to proven my hair was meant to harbor
fairies and dandy lions. There are hyacinths 
between my toes and the ivy creeps up my ankles.
I am the potted basil plant. I am the oregano.
The sage. The dandy lions who believe
hard enough that they're flowers--
we're flowers you know-- we're toad stools 
and poisonous but damn well lovely 
to look at.
I'm sorry I waited like a crock pot on the counter
to tell you I walk in a garden-- plant
bottle caps in the tops of my feet
and they'll grow hyacinths--
I don't pluck dandy lions-- 
I roar.