What if I’m not doing this right? I ask myself on the floor of the laundry room, halfway between mismatched socks and the guilt I carry like lint
By Elena Vale2 years ago in Poets
You finally fell asleep— after the stories, the water, the bathroom trip you insisted you didn’t need until you did. After the wrong pajamas,
I hid in the bathroom today. Not to cry— though that came later. Just to breathe in a room where no one was saying my name
Last night you called me Mama. Like always. Like forever. But the sound was rounder, sharper somehow— as if your voice had swallowed a year
It wasn’t when you were born. Not when you first cried or curled like a question mark against my chest. It came later— quiet and unnoticed—
Gloves off in the rose beds, we kneel not in prayer but rebellion— trowels scraping against the neat borders they drew for us.
They said bring pies so we brought axes disguised as rolling pins our aprons starched white as surrender flags but tied too tight
Click. Click. Click. The sound of wooden needles counting stitches like casualties in a quiet war. Wool unravels between fingers
For the first time in a long time, there exists what feels like glow coming from my chest. It's hard to describe in so many words, but it's a good thing.
By BrettNotGreg2 years ago in Poets
Lesson One: How to sharpen a pencil into something dangerous. How to write your name in script so perfect it cuts like a scalpel.
The china bears the evidence— hairline fractures where her grip tightened but didn’t shatter, water spots like faded tear stains
She folds the rebellion into fitted sheets— each crease a battle line, each sock matched and rolled tight as a Molotov cocktail.
