Good Grief by J.M. Chadwick (17, Massachusetts)

Lately I’ve been thinking
that the lonesome dining table chairs 
and fuzzy televisions,
the ones abandoned on the side of an open road,
are just where the ghosts go to sit and to see. 
Don’t they deserve peace too? 

When I say that music has been moving me recently, 
I mean it has packed me up into brown cardboard boxes
and stacked me up in the back of a white van 
rented by a family of four for the day. 
I am unleashed into a lonely, tangy kitchen, 
and I sit on the floor.

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Redundancy has always been my act two; 
I swallow dirt so that I will grow and I will bloom.
In case you were wondering, 
dirt tastes a lot like letting go of resentment and everything
mixed together with the past (don’t worry, it’s unprocessed)
with melting ice cubes sinking and spinning.

Did you know that my body
is just a funnily-shaped glass bottle?
My heart is hell-fire, orange and black,
and I like that about it.
My feelings are always tattooed on me,
but I wear striped long sleeves and tweed pants.

The pavement knows me by name,
and that is alright.
I don’t like to go into other people’s houses
because what if their house rejects me?
I can always see it throwing me onto the wet grass
with the chimney huffing and puffing.

I have never known the grace
of normalcy--functionality.
My eyes close themselves 
and starry spots take the dance floor.
I sell all of my belongings for a dollar a dozen;
everything must go.

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