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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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![]() I. the man at our door talks of showers. his gray lips foam sudsy white and steam billows blue with every syllable dir-ty. got-none. could-ya? in my mind, melting droplets rim his forehead like lace. i think of how he’d wear them like a crown. i think, probably drugs. II.
he names my brother buddy and my mother beautiful. as he sits on our stoop his cracked fingers unfurl banana peels like silken ribbons spooling in his lap. his husky coughs paint stone portraits: daughter, basketball, the hard life. inside, i glare at the faceless words on my page I think white powder and steel bars his weight against our door pushing down on my neck. i bring the brownest bananas down from the kitchen, only when asked. III. when she lets him inside, my mother parts the room with her stare and meets my eyes midair. vowels dribble down my chin. she lays a bar of soap on a folded towel like a sacrifice. in my room, the creak of pipes makes me itch. as the water falls, my blood clouds with kicked-up mud IV. now, each week he unfolds our plastic containers like origami ripe with steam lifts the bananas tucks the money. wraps himself in my father’s old shirts like wings. he tells us stories of how he comes to us, how he trusts these kind people. tells us, as if they are strangers. when we don’t answer the door, he rasps it’s me like a password. like it means something. V. yesterday, he told my father he loved him. squinted down at the ten dollar bills as they lay gutless in his palm. as if from the bottom of a well. my brother named him friendly. my mother named him lonely. my father said this is getting ridiculous, overturning furniture in search of boundaries VI. perhaps, this American water has poisoned me after all. strangers, beware. i am murky headed and churned but - am I not the spindled girl, is he not the splintered man? wolf and lamb, that is my discomfort. it sits stone-like in my stomach. I cannot find its soiled root or explanation. VII. i do not answer the door anymore. from the living room, I pretend not to listen. Comments are closed.
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May 2023
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