iii
With stone lips chapped and parted
A slight smile shows
Chipped teeth that lost it’s polish
With every faded
Memory.
They say every seven years
Your skins cells are renewed.
It’s been eleven,
And I still feel your touch
Embedded
Into my skin.
I was just a child then.
Because of you,
I will never feel whole again.
Holler talk refrains
Curve round my brain,
Fire up a itch for the shadow and glow
Of country folk broken and brought up by coal
And winding kudzu-covered roads.
Something primordial and writhing,
Once upon a time, on the ocean’s shore,
There was a beautiful shell that you couldn’t ignore.
It was the color of a distant horizon line,
When the sun sets beyond it and daylight is dying.
It’s been carried, once, by many things,
Within it were echoed the sounds of the seas.
And within it are whispers of things yet to pass,
It sees each blooming flower and each broken mast.
Yet these wisdoms go unknown.
The shell was cracked, these thing unshown.
Now no one knows what’s yet to be,
Just another shell within the sea.
Perhaps one day, though now impaired,
It is needed and repaired.
But now it drifts from shore to shore,
Leaving one to find one more.
Carried there along the tide,
The world’s secrets locked inside.
Who do you specialize in treating, and can you use my pronouns?
What modalities do you practice? Will I hate it?
Do you take my insurance?
When will I be better? I need a specific date. Really. I’m not kidding.
Where will I put these pocketfuls of trauma when we’ve exhausted them?
Do I recycle them?
No, not the trash; they were each such terrible, personal gifts.
Why must I learn to stay in my body? It’s dark in there, haunted, and full of bad presents.
What if this persistence is just the price of never being good enough to rest?
What if I never know if my love was big enough to deserve them?
How can I ever say for certain that I was enough to deserve anything at all?
Does your office make reminder calls? When do we begin?
I’ve never been,
but I need to go
to the city by the sea.
My toes long to be buried
in warm rocky sand.
My hair craves to be windswept
by a salty hand.
I’ve never been,
but somehow I need to be
in the city by the sea.
The skin on my cheeks
wishes to be burned away
to make room for sunkissed freckles.
My tongue aches to be sweetened
by the soft embrace
of café strawberry ice cream.
I’ve never been,
but still my heart cries out
for the city by the sea.
We all found ourselves in a circle.
I was the first to move,
my middle school best friend the first to suggest a game.
I admit I never memorized the rhyme,
but after today it’s seared into my memory.
It goes
Down by the banks of the hanky-panky
A frog jumped from bank to bank
Saying Eebs, Ibes, Opes, Oops
She playfully slapped everyone’s ass,
and I pointed to under the bleachers and said
“here’s the make-out corner”.
My friend from theater class said she would have to bring her boyfriend back later.
We snickered everytime the coach said “balls”
and we flattered each other’s figure like the compliment-deprived teens we are.
Listen to the rhythem of the ding-dang-dong.
Michael Jackson went to town,
Pepsi-Cola shot him down
Dr. Pepper fixed him up
Now we’re talking 7-up
Slipping sips of Sprite and Cherry Coke
During our hour long lunches.
Drinking what we’re sure is some kind of drug.
We pass around the bottle and agree it smells like piss
and that Riley’s mom tried to kill us with this strange electrolyte powder.
7-Up has no caffine,
Now we’re talking Billy-Jean
Billy-Jean went downtown,
singing,
Ooo-a-ditty-ditty-dum-ditty-doo
The only way I can make it through the excersise
is by singing Fireflies in my head,
A song everyone finds annoying now.
The coach does a little dance to the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme.
We roll our eyes but still giggle at his antics.
We pretend we only watch kids movies
to laugh at their stupidity,
but know their theme songs by heart.
Lincoln Lincoln I’ve been thinkin’
What on earth have you been drinkin’?
Is it whisky Is it wine?
Ohmygoshit’ssummertime!
I’ve never drank but I can’t say the same for them.
We’re only stupid kids,
getting our mistakes out
while no one depends on us
But we slipped up,
and now we depend on each other.
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
…Time to grow up.
I’m sorry
I’m sorry for not coming when you called
Your letters landed on my doorstep
The doorstep of a young aspiring college student
Independent of family
Please forgive me
I hardly heard the voice in your letters
A call to your side, to listen
A call to me, oldest living grandchild to carry on the name
I love you
Please know that
Please excuse my absence
There was no absence of love
Call it youthful folly
Raised without the meaning behind deep family connection
I’m grateful
Grateful for having met you, known you, loved you
Cherished you
Remember the fresh young boy with his brother
Greeting you at the train?
“There’s my boys!” you told the porter
We smiled with great joy as we hugged you dearly.
