Prayers to Venus

Sometimes I wish I was 

Lilac flowers bundled together with twine

White fluffy cardigan in a field of daisies

Reading Jane Austen with the gold lined porcelain tea set beside me

Or rather maybe sipping Earl Grey tea

Studying Thoreau in a dimly lit coffee shop

The smell of Vermont swirling around like dandelion wishes

A wool skirt around my waist, of fine quality and adequate size

Other times I wish I was

In a thousand polaroid pictures

Of frizzy hair, toothy smiles and arcade games

Drinking blue raspberry slushies in a prep school uniform

I would die to be in the studio

With the art of ancients between my fingers

And my apron covered in mud

Snacking on strawberries off of a platter 

I want to live in a silver screen world

With pleated a-lines and a grace that even Kelly can’t afford

With a glass of champagne before midnight

With thoughts that don’t remind me of Sylvia Plath

But then I look in the mirror

        And I see

                           a marshmallow girl,

                                                                   taking up too much space,

with their judgment fused to her bones,

                                                       and know that she will never be all of these things.

For unless the divine intercedes

These will eternally be just a fat girl’s dreams

Aubrey Brolsma