Where I’m from is an old little house,Fraying at the seams with waterlogged edges,An enclosed porch with a screen door that falls off, A door that doesn’t lock or unlock, A yard once full of fun things,Now reduced to empty grass. No more rotting swingsets,Broken slides,Reclaimed sandboxes, Dead […]
Rambling oak branches that curiously reach this way and that, like energized neurons trapped in a cerebellum. Distant city lights, which sparkle like the white of an eye against the darkness of a deep, blue sapphire iris. The sound of the train in the early […]
I love my parents, I do—it’s true,But they taught me everything I shouldn’t do.I played Barbies alone, tucked away in my room,While they stared at their phones, lost in the gloom. They expected me to raise my little brother,But why couldn’t that be the job […]
Lord– Countless familial and novel names filled my childhood prayers. Words followed the same pattern, cadence, and tempo as I recited: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; If I should die before I wake, I pray […]
I listened to you sing like a golden canary in the branches of an ancient oak. I watched you dance just like a graceful ballerina who made time stand still. I watched you wither away as the sickness chewed and gnawed stripping away at your […]
I hold my younger self like a thrashing feral animal –In a tight and safe embrace.She’s fighting back hard,Baring her teeth;I’m sure to her,My arms feel like a cage.I’m sure to her,I’m the thing she hides from at night.But her teeth and nails are blunt,And […]