Growing Pains I kept waiting to grow, all year. Not thinking that it would happen all at once all at the end when I was tired of waiting to grow. And the growing pains would actually feel like perishing— as if I had lit every loose strand of my constant unweaving fragmented thoughts frayed ends The Unfinished Parts. I thought they would burn back in line but they’ve lit the whole shebang, and what started as a tiki torch is now a bonfire and I keep tearing, tossing parts of my world in just to see what color the flame is… how the old me smells, burnt. Only I am barely old and that is now barely me. Found and forgiven feels like planted then sprouted and through the ashes a great green growth the kind that comes right on between concrete slabs inviting the pressure and you think surely not surely something smooshed as easily in a palm would scarcely survive in suburbia. Yet confidently, from my wet lips, to yours: Bitch, I’m back Ready for another spring Made it safely to February Two years after twenty-seven No one said I couldn’t No one said I could Born burned Growing green Perhaps next year I’ll be as yellow As the sunflower My own flame Lit bright enough To be seen From inside out.
Poems that are green green green:
