Scraps whispered to the wind/ spilled groceries

Scraps whispered to the wind

No one taught me the way words

Could carry

once written down

and folded up

then torn into little pieces

and traded off into a gust

from standing on a snowbank

in the pale and misty firs

no one had to teach me

I just knew how to say

goodbye to her

my little hands were heavy

but I remember still the stream

of tears

that streaked down each cheek

and I must have seemed

a painting to a parent

that made sense

for being real

***

Spilled groceries

Once I was an automaton

afraid to be anything at all

mostly of my human self

and in the ways I can't add up

And you,

what are you afraid of?

To be a stranger, to be loved?

I saw a mother drop her fruit

on the ground but I couldn't pick it up

there was a line unseen between us

that said

'helping is too much'

so the apples rolled across the ground,

and I was an automaton, in a human shell

only

craving love