can i get a prize?

i would like an ice cream scoop.

Graeter’s BRC.

in dreams, she’s a snail
withdrawn, and waiting for the 
trail to disappear

a friend pulled judgement yesterday
“nearly to completion,” they said
sitting in the waiting room’s cushioned armchair 
i pondered the meaning behind the pull
which supposedly ruled in my favor

completion
completion of what?
the riddance of the crawling feeling
beneath my skin?
the knot in my stomach begging
to be unraveled?
the prickling of my goosebumps signaling
danger!
you’ve reached consumption!
you cannot escape now!

desperately clinging to the flimsy card
the judge peers with her hooded eyes
she smiles
“nearly to completion”

i hope she’s wrong

Squirmy
wormy
coffee with a splash of milk eyes.

Little tan eyebrows
teddy-bear girl
Round apple head

Tiny guard dog
head of security
big bark-bigger bite.

Tiny pink tongue
perfect for giving wet puppy-dog kisses
licking off tears for the salt.

Best nurse ever
(I’ve been perscribed four hours of cuddles)
My Harley-girl

Father speaks of a home yet

running mental laps      recycling vowels to cry out when i inevitably am shoved to the hot
ground of my        imagination because this        does not happen

                         it won’t happen if i wear white veils instead of         red and avoid speaking wolves and lay       low in tide pools full of my own rebreathed breath

                                  the air exhausted of its womanness with each safe suffocated exhale

                                                                                anemones and polyps popping etiquette
threats at my eyes periwinkle with         embarrassment

                                                                                                           that i could think such a thing
could happen         to an anthropomorphic deform

                                                               a clay vase abandoned        before its waist was smoothed
with slip

if asked where is my         fear i’d say         oh yes        here         see it         is        water shaped

The night after my sister fell off her bike and broke her arm, 
I saw the Northern Lights. I was 11
with the family visiting grandparents on Lake Erie, 
and my sister had complained into the wee hours that her arm was throbbing. 
Mom’s voice carried into our room: “hairline fracture” and “hospital,”
and then the whole family was standing by our station wagon in the driveway 
hushed, 
my sister holding her arm, 
all of us gaping at the ribbons of light over the neighbor’s roof. 
That night is legendary in our family, still talked about at shrinking holiday dinners.

When the Northern Lights appeared in the Kentucky sky in May, 
I remembered after I’d gone to bed
only because my daughter texted me to go look!. 
I made a half-assed attempt, lifting blinds on my bedroom window, 
but seeing only the glow from the Shell station,
I went back to bed and fell asleep.
I slept through the Aurora Borealis. 
Slept right through it. 
Not a single picture to share on social media. 
No tales to tell about how I drove miles away from light pollution to see it.
I just closed my eyes and slept 
because nothing tops seeing astronomical magic when you’re a kid,
because I ache too much now witnessing Wonder when I’m alone.

The greatest generation would be ashamed of us,
if they could see us now. Everything they fought for,
what they fought against, coming full circle in 2024.
How are Nazi’s still here among us? How do they
exist in our modern world? My head and heart can
not fathom that these people still exist. Outdated ideas,
fueled by hatred. The shame I feel is immense; I am 
sorry that we are letting you down.

We matter, we’re matter
atoms, molecules
never die
just change form
so science says.

Could we live on
as flowers, bees,
dust in the breeze,
one of zillions of stars?

Somewhere in the air we breathe
or the visions we see
maybe past lives set free.

You cannot dig out the splinter.
Your side keeps flooding with blood,
it is below the ribs, angled up. 
And when light blisters on the wound
you can see clearly what it is:
at first you thought it was small,
but you always knew deep down
it was a bullet. You cannot dig it out.
Your hands do not reach deep enough
up to the elbow, slick inside you.
But you can nearly touch your heart, 
you could almost fold a fist around it. 
Feel it there, the bullet, how your heart wraps
around the metal like a pearl grows around 
a parasite, this silver shard, this wince.
You cannot dig it out. You learn to 
regenerate, grow back layers of wound
until the flesh is thick with purple scar tissue,
and the entrance wound is gauzed by skin.
You learn to live around the memory.
Your therapist shows you boxes
and labels them pain, surrounds them
with life. You do not make the pain smaller,
you build your life larger. The bullet
is still lodged inside. You build your life
larger. You feel it move sometimes,
rattling through the chambers of your heart.
You cannot dig it out. Months pass bitterly,
the memory clots only in quiet moments
as the bullet corrodes. You cannot dig it out.
Your life is large enough now to swallow it,
to take the pain with only a flinch. 
The bullet feels more like a splinter 
you no longer feel the need to dig out.