i am the ghostwriter of my own past
as i stare down
at my high school class photograph.
the face i see staring back at me, smiling
wrapped in the arms of people
who weren't my friends
wasn't me, either.
perhaps that's why i want
to forgive them so badly.
sometimes i feel
as if my heart
is an infected tumor that grows
inside me
and the doctor sitting across from me
is too afraid to say something.
i just want
to be good.
i realize this
as i pass my neighbor's house
one warm afternoon
and watch as the ghost of a rainbow
glimmers beneath a sprinkler's curtain.
i am eight years old again
and i am watching as my mother collects the scorpions
that she finds scurrying around the house
and traps them in jars.
instead of releasing them,
she sets them out in rows
on the hot concrete driveway
underneath the summer sun.
they baked there, helpless
their exoskeletons hollowed out
like the inside of an ear canal.
violence
was the way i was taught
to handle fear.
this was a case
of quiet cultivation.
if i were any good at gardening
i would pluck the seeds that i've sewn in my sleep
and sit by my empty flower bed
until it began
to rot.
YOU ARE READING
the archives - a poetry portfolio
PoésieA light buzzing distracts you from whatever you're doing. There is an old, weathered monitor on a table next to you. You could have sworn that it had just *appeared* out of thin air. Out of curiosity, you stare at it for a moment. The screen flicke...
