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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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a space for youth writing on mental health & identity
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![]() /head/ he tilts left in sideways curiosity a doll, broken-necked and under bed an urge to grab his ears and wrench them straight - mother tells me i’ve yet to learn sympathy with every step, he jolts in jerky nods unwittingly agreeing with my lambastment /eyes/
sliced open, they would gush concrete he smears down one sticky eyelid - a desiccated wink mother & father & brother are charmed mother told me he used to smoke a-pack-a-day ash stacked long, burnt tip drooping leaking lines of purple smoke leaking tears from stinging eyes twenty years later the doctor said your left eye or the cigarettes, man the victory of a cold turkey quit - deep bloated sacs of milk and cloud /mouth/ mother tells me motor skills become a challenge she laughs as she wipes away a line of drool and tucks it in her lap like a secret sometimes, he bares his green-gray teeth withered lips crimping upwards - i wonder if this holds a smile or is simply routine separation, flesh from bone at dinner, the gash grows wet and bloody I push away my plate, thinking of stitches mother tells me she learned four languages from that gaping tongue /back/ on the couch, he seems to curve himself around the empty - preserving the spaces where the missing once lay mother told me he used to dive beneath aqua waves - back rippling under assuredness of stroke a confidence of body, tan and tall /stomach/ i wonder if that’s where they go thoughts of tying shoes & daughter’s face knots of concepts through intestine tracks scraped, excreted, flushed - fetid sewage my own gut curdles pity and disgust milk and lemon, cottage cheese mother tells me you're carrying his genes, - a quarter of body, a quarter of soul - i look down, blackened hand through shriveled lung a quarter forgotten, a quarter burned when his stomach rumbles he puts my hand on his thin abdomen and laughs /hair/ i like to think the still-blond, static strands are tiny threads of remembrance - floating above his head like dancing flowers mother told his childhood was a romance novel a house, with a name, perched mountain-tip and over-lake bicycle freedom through manured fields of slanted yellow a rain-washed, winding alpine road i pull a strand from the sleeve of his sweater pinched thumb to pointer, i almost taste the forgotten thrill of bitter air abandoned by mind, pushed through head shed to sleeve, mine to borrow an urge to pick yellow hair from the shower drain. /feet/ he almost got to the supermarket while we slapped the concrete with desperate heels mother found him, bent over a ten dollar bill she laughed, brassy, through swollen tears /fingers/ afternoon by window, peeling pigments from the sky crisped orange and sun soaked indigo yellow nails point to dancing silhouettes he still knows beauty - there is nothing to forget I watch him watch the colors fade mother told me he was a painter, once /breath/ he fell asleep beside me, softly awash in the television’s bluish glow i matched my chest to his slow rise and fall knowing this, at least, would be mine to forget Comments are closed.
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Unless otherwise noted, all pictures used are open-source images in the public domain. Archives
November 2023
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