mandated_reporters neoncrackle in pictures from my early childhood i thought i had birthmarks that had faded but looking i saw that the streaks on my legs were not as i thought tanlines or sunburns not the scrapes & tangles of a childhood spent in play but the streaks of infection following the arteries of my legs from the infected toenails on my feet & it's so strange to look at that child & see a white haired angel standing in the surf with the atlantic ocean doing more for my poor little toes than my own mother could manage sometimes i think about the story my mom would tell about how my nose was broken twice before i was 5 how cute i was with my 2 bruised black eyes like a little raccoon with curls now though it's harder to believe the part of the story where she said i broke it myself because i remember so much rides to the beach playing among our haitian neighbors' hanging laundry whole meals of ketchup & saltines even now i think the ocean was my first real mother 220301 what's it to you? who go blather from