Memory

My grandmother didn’t remember me at the end.
She looked at me and said
“Jo! Why aren’t you at school?”
Jo is my mom.
I was six years old
When she left

it was without a memory of me.
But I remember.
I remember sitting on her lap as she painfully
combed the knots from my bird nest-hair,
I remember visiting her musty apartment
Old stuffed animals and chipped china dolls
littering her dining room chairs.
I remember the doll she gave me the last time i saw her,
Raggedy Ann with her faded blue dress, her yarn hair fraying.
And I remember when my mother said she was afraid.
Afraid that at the end, she would not remember either.

Introvert's Dilemma

I am tired of living
in an extroverts world
where silence is unforgiving
and emotions unfurled.
Where books are left on cases
their spines never cracked.
No one sits around fireplaces
words are never abstract.
I want to return to my books
of knights, squires and queens
lay down by a brook
fall into my dreams.
But change is never seen
on the young morning’s breeze.

Small Talk

The creature known as Small Talk has been around since the beginning of human interaction but has only come to be the monster it is today around the 20th century. While some say his intentions are pure, some have a different view. He remains invisible to many, but to a few unlucky people known as introverts, the Small Talk is a frightening sight. Edward Rolen, a leading expert in the field of odd creatures, speculates as to why the introverts are most affected. “The Small Talk overwhelms introverts with its bright yellow skin used to catch its unsuspecting victims in the spotlight. Its large blue eyes peer into ones soul to increase discomfort and its gaping jaw is filled with razor sharp idle chatter.” This fearsome creature, though physically harmless, leaves those who were fortunate enough not to succumb to its trivial discussions about the weather, in no shape to tell the tale. One such survivor, who wishes to remain nameless, simply looked at the interviewer with frightened eyes when asked to retell the encounter. When asked how she survived, she whispered "I smiled and nodded." This has been accepted as the best defense against these monsters. In order to avoid contact with the Small Talk, it is advised to remain indoors at all times.

Summer

Flowers in full bloom
Brighten the day of the bee
So I stay inside

Preemie

The sun beamed down
before you took your first breath.
My shaking hands gently took yours
The soft flutter of your pulse
Flapping against your wrist
As I looked at my paper doll girl.
I was afraid to crumble your bones with the gentlest kiss,
Afraid you'd fold right through my fingertips.
Nonetheless my heart reached out to encompass you.

You learned to flirt before you could walk
With death as your bachelor of choice.
The slow beeps of your heart giving hints to his presence
As he lays down beside your incubator cell.
I miss you when you sneak out at night
But I pray you'll come back to me.
Time and again. Beat by beat.

-Updated 5/8/18

Sleep

The snap of twig against twig
lent music to the hushed night
as the birds rested their voices
for tomorrow.

They whispered for me to rise and sing,
to join their night time orchestra
on the star spangled stage.

To dance my bow across the strings of the violin,
Like shooting stars across the black abyss.
To beat the melody of gravity against the drum of the earth.
To twirl in the rays of the moon.

But my blanket held me captive in its tangles
and my feathered pillow drowned their call.
And sleep locked the door.



-Updated 5/3/18

Innocence

The first tooth I lost
fell to the kitchen floor.
I lay my cheek on the cold tile
peering under mahogany cabinets
and cushioned chairs until I found it,
nestled between a long lost cheerio and the table leg.
I picked it up as a jeweler would a diamond,
held it up for all to see.
When night fell
and the tooth fairy was set to come,
I hid the tooth not under my heart shaped pillow
guarded by my army of fuzzy friends,
but in my secret hiding place,
where the dresser didn’t quite meet the wall
not even a fairy could find it.
No one could take it away from me.
Even for a quarter.


-Updated 4/15/18

Flight

The pull in your stomach
as you begin to fall.
The wind screams in your ears
as gravity grabs you
into its embrace.
The tug of your shoulders as wings
black as cinder, light as the sun’s rays
stretch out from your shoulder blades,
like a butterfly from a cocoon.
stretching towards the heavens.
And you soar.
The clouds part before you as you own the sky
turning and wheeling with the hawks.
Fighting gravity. Fighting time.
The summit of your youth flashes by as you soar higher still.
Surmounting your past.
But like paper to flame, your wings crumble to mourners ash
as the sun greets you with the heat of the day.
The smoke fills your nose, the ash your eyes.
You turn and wheel but the hawks are gone.
Blue above and below as they merge.
Fear pulls your stomach
as you begin to fall.


-Updated 5/3/2018

of Summer Days

The window stood witness over summer's green grass where children play,
over the house’s brick facade, promising warm fires to melt winter’s toes
over a mother’s morning embraces more enticing than coffee
over bright eyed smiles lighting up the house
over chicken soup bubbling when fevers ran high
over brown paper lunch bags on the first day of school.
But now they stand witness to nighttime smokes
and raised voices in the kitchen
and lonely meals
and pillows muffling sobs.

The grass is turning brown.

-Updated 5/3/18