Hello internet darlings, I do apologize for my absence last week. I also apologize for subjecting you to this piece of my own work.
I heard them
say once that there was a
princess who could neither sink
nor cry and she was loved by most
and hated by some and
cursed by a very few.
And I think
about how I, who can both
sink and cry and quite often
do both am loved by some
and hated by others as I sit
under the desk in my sister’s
room and tell her about the
life-cycles of lichens.
which
is a topic she does not find so
interesting as the fairy tales I told her
when she was a baby and would
sit on top of my blue cotton colored
pillows and ask me for stories
with sad middles
and happy endings and a witch and
maybe even a princess and, if I
was feeling adventurous, an ocean
or a pond if I was not.
And she
would take the ends of my braids,
clutching them in sweaty palms if
I put a witch in the story, twisting
them between pink-lacquered
nails if I told her of a princess
and giving sharp, expectant
tugs when I talked about lichen.
Inevitably my sister,
light of my life, will fall asleep
and I will lift her gently in my arms
and carry her soft frame to bed,
and inevitably she will stir and
ask me if she can sink, and of course
I will say not today.
