PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

I have a closet full of dresses that I love, except for one.

I have seven dresses in blue.

My mother's favorite dress for church functions

hangs next to the long Hawaiian print dress I wear 

on cold summer days. The short dress I wear on warm

summer days rests next to that. My blue and yellow

fairy dress flutters beside them, the butterfly wings 

I wear with it dangling from it's hook. I have two 

dresses I wear when going down to the pool, one long

and one short, one bought from a thrift store, and one not.

I have eight black dresses, most of them formal.

One is charcoal grey with black flowers, worn only on

date nights. One is formal, long and velvet, so dark it 

looks blue. Another is a flamenco dress I picked up on 

the border of Mexico for a song. One is an Elvira dress.

I own three different dresse for going dancing at clubs,

all slightly different forms of "indecently short". 

The last I bought at my sister's uring from Victoria's Secret,

simple, plain, and perfect.

My red dresses chronicle my teenage years.

The first is a simple sleeveless dress,

elegant in design, but very thin. The second is 

loud, purple, and only good for costume parties.

The third is the fire-enging red silk dress that I 

never got to wear to Senior Prom. Finally,

my maroon dress, picked up for cheap from 

Salvation Army, but later discovered to be worth

so much more.

I own four green dresses, two my mother gave me,

and two I bought for myself.

One was formerly hers, a long silk gown,

the color of fresh poison. The other, patterned

ivy, was carefully sewn for me when I was 15.

The first I bought for myself is simple, a dark forest green

worn mainly around the house on lazy days.

The other is a rich olive, beautiful and intricate,

found at the Renaissance Fair when I was 23.

I only have two white dresses.

The first is short,

meant for summer,

made with lace and silk

with a delicate bow on the front.

The second is my wedding dress.

Purchased for me on my 16th birthday, 

it is hidden away in a garment bag,

covered in a sheet, tucked away in 

a suitcase in the back of my closet,

gathering dust.

It was possibly the gravest insult I have ever recieved,

that at sixteen years old, I was purchased a wedding gown

for the boyfriend I didn't have, for the happiness I had never felt, 

for the children I didn't want to bear, for the life I didn't want to live.