i used to be the good god-fearing daughter full of desire to make everyone else happy, but now i'm the juliet-jezebel who lays up with her "low-class" boyfriend, whose entire family her mother despises, and kisses in public and has been known to ask her darling mother why she can't be happy with this boyfriend cause at least he's white and male, right?.

now i'm the daughter whose mother writes her name on prayer chains and sends her pamphlets from the Living Blood of Christ Our Holy Lord Baptist Church via priority mail even though she only lives 2.3 miles up the road.

now i'm the daughter who worships her own earthy, triangular goddess rather than the towering statue that is His Lord, Our Savior, and who flirts with women and old men at the Piggly Wiggly and SideWalk Cafe even though her mother comes through with a gaggle of blue-haired harpies on the regular - always mortified by my lascivious flesh-on-flesh contact.

i am the daughter who opens herself over and over again, rushing to meet the self on the other side of climactic lines, enjoying the dusky smells of sensuality without shame or guilt. i am the daughter who bleeds ego without pain, who swallows pleasure without choking, and who refuses to bow down at any altar other than her own.

i used to be the daughter who feared. i am now the daughter who laughs with teeth bare, neck exposed, lips open to the world.