Sometimes after you’ve drunk the acid it’s hard to tell if things are moving?
My neighbor cut down the line of arborvitae that prevented him from looking straight through his window into mine,
rolled them like green bodies into the woods—cone-ish cocoons to orange and brittle in dried, dead passions.
Painted his cottage marshmallow white,
hoofs to puff, to hide all of their slaughter,
elk burgers and bacon, CBD lavender oils and bong-blow all wafting through the glass, and he slathered on licorice trim, black to keep the white in lines.
I did this too, as a child, colored all carefully within the lines,
felt black most important as I outlined my entire Santa Claus,
even his green mittens, his pre-printed black boots, pressing hard,
especially careful, not to shake and scribble and I won!
Contests like this, the perfect, quiet, complying daughter
whose colors had no hope of being seen standing on their own.
My prize? I rode an elephant in the Smith’s Food King circus,
on just before the Barnum and Bailey,
paraded in front of the unlucky children,
in a licorice outfit—black and red mixed bag of plaid, a bare midriff,
I hated my mother for forcing the showing of my navel under all,
of those burning lights--it’s what I remember most of being prized.
Photo Credit: Becky Phan/unsplash