“I have something for you,” My mother paused, “but would you still want it if you knew how I got it?"

She's holding my hand as we're jaywalking in our little town. The rich scent of petrichor hangs in the air as the morning sun breaks through rain clouds. Rays, like gold coins, litter the black asphalt before us in a beautiful display. I needlessly try to avoid a small puddle; my shoes are already wet. Our car was recently repossessed, so we've been walking a lot lately.

As I ponder her question, my mother produces a candy bar from her jacket pocket. I wonder where it came from as I certainly would have noticed her purchasing it from the store we just left. She’d bought only cigarettes.

As she hands the candy to me, I understand she has stolen this item. I also realize she was trying to do something nice for me. But why this way? I was young, yet old enough to know that stealing was wrong. I felt shame, even though I was not the one that stole.

I decided, at a later time in life, she was simply doing the best she knew how.

Wrote this post three months ago. Still miss my Mom as much today as then, but greatly appreciated all the kind comments.

Awaiting Eternity

I would knock down those pearly gates to see my Mother, who died less than three months ago. I expect she’s probably polishing those gates today.

I'm glad that eternity awaits.

I don't think I ever posted this piece -- I just discovered it in my notes app and wanted to post for posterity. I have so much nostalgia and grief for last summer. I love to write about time, and the seasons, and I wish I could comfort my younger self and tell her that she will look back on it with a certain amount of disdain but also relief that it's over now. I want to tell her that it's over now.

Untitled

That night — when I first lay

with my face close to femininity —

was at the beginning of June. Yet

May haunts me, with its soft breeze and

unerring greenness. I was still gentle.

I never asked

for any of it

and you are so free

I went to Virginia

saw the sky

then realized how much healing

was left to do

I am choosing to resurface a short poem of mine from a challenge by @JD4 on What is the SOUL? because i like it in theme and effect and because it supplements nicely the current CotW on the task of the Grim Reaper.

@7v7

July 20, 2020 • 52 reads

Soul is

the aspect

that’s at once

naive and old

blasé as if

and wise

to the world

stitched

for a moment

with skin

yet neither

out nor in

borne

an emblem

of eternal

Being

there is no

my or their

or your---

Always

the cosmos

owns the Soul.

07.24.2023

Yes Why Not a Post from the Past?! challenge @Last

This was first written as a mid-term exam. Nothing excessive, simply a single page: Concession and counterargument style, with inspiration from the strong, caustic piece "Ain't I a Woman?" A Black woman ain't never heard or seen, and she ain't never been treated as fine and delicate as a White woman. Yet she's still weaker than a man somehow? What I have felt for a long time, is that adults have power over what I should feel, what I should agree with, what I should think, young people who see injustice in the world are silenced and ridiculed. Forced to conform else they're stripped of the status symbols that adults dictate are necessary for their future and their success. Pulled out from school, kicked out of a home, shunned from club activities or other social functions. Anger is a violent, ugly emotion, a monster to keep at bay, rather, speak like an adult: to understand what we say and have a discourse or so it's easier to ignore and dismiss as whimsy and immature, undercooked musings? Did you know scientists have called an adolescent's brain a raw potato?

https://www.theprose.com/post/747934/aint-i-a-child

This was one of my first long poems. I was grieving my grandfather. My whole life felt like it was in flames. So, I decided to put my feelings into writing. By spilling the grief into poetry, I found the best way to tell my stories and feelings.

------------------------------

My skin has become ashes

My brain lit aflame from the promises

My eyes dulled from the smoke

As everything around me broke

My blood is flame

In horrible beauty, it destroys me from the inside without shame.

Perhaps the worst of all

Is my heart that opens the cracks to the dawn.

My heart is scorched beyond recognition

Pumping my flamed blood like a man on a mission

As if pretending that there was normalcy as the chaos consumes me

Praying that this monster is my legacy

Something amazing that I'll never get to see

But deep down, my heart knows that will never be

As a legacy means nothing if he's not here with me

The blood lit only spark that has grown into a flame

It burns me until no one can know who I am until I respond to my name

Growing up queer in 1980s Ohio, my entire sexual world was in my head; I was pushed into the closet of my minds, where I enjoyed freedom.

We all thought Shawn Kiely was sex in a Speedo the summer of ’87. Adults openly clucked tongues while whispering about the Adonis on the local pool swim team.  We were less subtle; when he walked by the lounge chairs, still wet and glistening in the golden light of late morning, girls would close their eyes and take a long, slow breath, trying to capture his sweet smelling skin over the chlorine; boys would watch too, with mixed parts of jealousy, awe, and a hidden desire to be him or naked next to him in the shower, pulling the cheap white plastic curtain shut, ignoring the metal scraping as the grommets screech across the rod, if only for a brief, tangy, mind-melting kiss. Yet he was either unaware, uninterested, or unwilling. By summer’s end, we came despite brutal heat for one last glance, sigh, and poolside fantasy before the first sprout of hair on his shaven legs popped out, heralding the end of our time with the sensuality that remained ephemeral and palpable.