Just Visiting

She was born
Choking on the air
Her hospital band
Said
"Just Visiting"
In that warm little incubator
Was an ugly little duckling

Between the grunts and congested cries
Nurses and doctors whispered
Soothing words
"Sleep, baby, sleep"
Her violet eyes were always
Looking to the ceiling

The twenty-third adoption
Was a charm
They named her Mikayla
But she called herself Stella
And she howled at the moon
And couldn't sleep alone

Her eight stepbrothers farmed
And she would sing for them
She was too weak to work
And her hollowed bones
Resonated the turbulent tunes
They swore
She was an angel

Someday I will be taken away
I don't want to go
I wish I could stay
Something's calling me
Something so sweet
And I will sing for you from there
And my voice will carry everywhere

Every song she made
Ended with that verse
Sometimes she breathed the words
As she slept
Stella with her purple eyes
Her snowdrop skin
Her silk straw hair

Her eyes were dim and she looked beyond you
She said your blur was your soul
Everyone who stood before her
Had a special glow
Amos was always orange
Jack was green and blue
She could speak with carrots

Summer killed her everytime
She would cry at daybreak
Housed in for fair skin
Was torture she could not bear
From four to five she risked
Boils and burning

"You think I'm crazy,"
She'd say
If you looked at her in disbelief
She'd nod
"I am. I am this way
But I never lie, I can't"

When she was twenty she said
I'm leaving
But you'll find me
That night you could hear singing from the fields
A creature weaving through the wheat
And after daybreak they went out
To find her clothes and ashes