When I was seven, they had us stitch up some lavender pillows.

I didn’t care for needles then, and pain wasn’t relative.

I remember a laugh that filled the room,

stories of intoxication and how gravity could bend.

Our teacher played guitar sometimes.

When I was six, I sat in a doctor’s room clinging to my mother’s wrist.

I watched the other children frolic upon the violet carpet.

I remember singing happy birthday too early, the taste of cake on a candle.

I liked adventures with soap and butterflies back then,

With my smile stained by berry yogurt and stories I couldn’t handle.

When I was fourteen my dad told me of the grand life of Great-Grandmother Helen.

I remember laughing, the twilight in the window, staying awake all night writing poetry.

And I remember feeling the courage to hold a fuzzy, black caterpillar for the first time,

nostalgia over raising monarchs with my mother.

Singing in a closet while playing hide and go seek, daring to take a curious peek.

My youth was a kingdom of kings and queens,

a hierarchy practiced by butterflies, and it echoed bravery.

Blueberry ice-cream on wednesday nights, alongside my cousin’s velvet ballet tights.

The songs we sang at the old people’s home, the words I spat that stole the breath

of the gentle chaos of my death.

My childhood was filled with battleships and autumn sunsets.

It smelled of sinking into her warm sweater as she breathed,

taking in her smell of bluebells and callalilies.

It’s more of a personal account, I know.

But low in behold, these are the colors with whom I foretold.

I once danced in evergreen forests at 4:03 p.m.

I had pine needles for my 11-year-old hair.

Red and gold socks wrapped my feet,

as my feet tapped against the deep.

Do not despair,

as I get lost in coniferous wreaths quite too much

to be an easy child or a soul as such.

For I know flower crowns can make you befriend lizards and bears.

I spent my December dreams there,

lost in evergreen petrichor.

For I have ventured here before,

and I know candles illuminate the lore of acorns.

See, the squirrels and I cast wildlife spells.

And sang to the garter snakes hiding in the cattails.

Listened to the elk tell us their fables

and climb upon their coattails.

Until the day, our branches of adventure came to rue-

when the machines came, exhaling poison exhaust fumes.

There they stayed, forevermore.

Leaving us screaming, “whatever for?”

        “Harrison,” she said as she picked at her crumpets and eggs. “Never shout for those who can whisper.” The room fell silent as Ms. Ophelia’s sickly pale hair fell against her shoulders; sturdy and still- the force of a silent and merciless hurricane. And when silence pursued, even the children gawked in their throats, because those who listened to her words crumbled at her feet. And those who touched her felt the cold sweep through their teeth, and they breathed bow-legged at her epiphany of an existence. Her voice had never risen, yet she could silence a room with the flick of her rosy pink tongue. Those who feared her gave her names and those who envied her gave her flowers, and that is why her body looks like it is decomposing behind her eyes. 

         The local church won’t let her in. The Father there thinks she is a fallen angel mimicking the journey of the devil. Maybe she is. 

         Little does he know she sleeps with the holy girls who crave a taste of winter rebellion and numbing lips that smell of alcohol. Because you don’t need to be loud to wallow in the outspoken’s throats. And you don’t need to be violent to make a ribcage rattle and ache.

         The tall and perpetual Harrison shuffled into the courting room and lit a cigar. The smoke swallowed his pride as he sank into an old leather chair. And with the creak of the old oak floor, he ate his words.