Poetry

When I lean against my grandma 

On the green couch 

She talks about things that used to be 

Does that mean 

When I’m her 

My grandkids won’t understand 

Everything you do is acceptable

We stand with open arms

At your next word

There’s an imaginary red carpet

Laid out for you in the halls at school

Your hair was always beautiful,

Long and luciousous,

Everyone always loved it. 

But then you cut it off. 

Long strands fly away to the floor,

While you're in the bathroom, 

Closed door. 

Golden like the sun, 

blooming in the spring, 

till they turn to fuzz, 

flying in the wind. 

What our parents call weeds, 

what we called flowers when we were young. 

• I have not even met all of me left
• The ocean understands a part of me I always keep hidden
• I will always escape to nature and never you
• I keep trying to tell you it's been a while since I've been me
• The less I

My head cold waits at my bedroom windowsill 

Tells me: 

‘No, you can’t do your homework. Lie back down and quit thinking so much.’ 

Tells me: 

every twist of inadequacy's blade

(each one worse than the previous)

fell in a rhythmic order, one that your silence

carried in. did you hate me?

you'd never say so. so blindly, i never changed.

In my attic I keep my heart. 
I hold it there, safe amidst pillows, blankets and childhood stuffed animals. 
When I make things, I break off a piece of my heart, 
and sew it into pillows, 

Sit in the cold gray sand. Like a sand crab,

nestle between each grain and wait

for the waves to crash on the shore. Tell me how

the beach is like the sky, a map of tiny things

Remember the old A-shaped house?

The one with the castle downstairs

And the spell around it?

It's empty now.

Did you know that?

There was this book

That I used to read

When I was younger

It talked about all these women

All these women

Who did amazing things

I took a walk
through my neighborhood

just like any other walk,
but I noticed so many things.

The plum blossoms in shades of
white and pink were blooming

in the trees along the sidewalk.