When the Devil child is sad, which is often,
he curls into a ball at the foot of his bed and he
digs his clawed little hands into his blankie
until at the other side of the world storms
whip into shape, take whole cities with them,
and then he starts to feel better.
His sister braids her hair and rolls her eyes
whenever he comes into the room and Devil
child looks at the floor and doesn’t ask if she
will braid his horns because she’s already told
him, like a million times, that horns don’t braid.
And sometimes, at dinner, Devil child refuses
to eat the green vegetables on his plate, demands
for something red but he’s not trying to be bad,
he just is afraid of losing his color, because Grandma
said: you are what you eat.
Once, Devil child, woke from a nightmare about the
end of days, and he screamed and screamed, until his
mother came running and asked him what was the matter
and he howled, it didn’t end, mama, it didn’t end, and she
wrapped warm arms around him and rocked him until
he fell back into sleep.
Devil child imagines what life will be like when he is
grown, when he is come full form, and he thinks
that it will mostly be the same, he will mostly be
ignored and he will mostly not care, but he does wonder
if he could grow up to be someone else.