letters to the moon [poetry]

growing pains

you were a child just yesterday
walking down dark paths in the forest
content in the attention you gleamed
from the everman in the willow

happy that the other girls were confined
to their mothers kitchens
while you danced with freedoms
they would never know.

you grew up in a haze
of sweet smoke and passion.
the warmth between your thighs
competed with the length of his fingers.

there were colors in your life
the rest of the world would never see.
the orange of matches hidden behind
cupped hands in the winter.
that shade a body takes
swimming toward you in blue water.
purple sunsets and silver leaves
and a little green car that carried you
across the country.

your father was a bigot
who traded rent money
for glass bottles of devil brew.
if your mother wasn't so naïve
she would have left him.

i tried to love you.
i tried to bring myself off the ships
and out of the mountains long enough
to play house and make beds
and never be late for supper.