Whispered In The Wind

Whispered In The Wind
Just a fairy blowing in the wind, singing tales to the west wind

Sunday, November 25, 2012

I've Decided To Love Myself


I've decided to love myself
I've decided to embrace my braces
and soft tummy
small curves and bumpy arms
I intend to love my flutter brain tendencies and astronaut orbits
I'm not bad at math; I just have a higher concentration of pixie dust in my blood
than most
There are pay offs you have to make when you're born a poet
common sense, for example
And I'm going to start complimenting myself,
when I look in the mirror
instead of finding every flaw, I will trace constellations in my eyes
comment on my high cheek bones and long lashes, gentle waist
That's how I will define my body; gentle
I don't lack muscle definition, I am a gentle soul, gentle body
I am of Botticelli's spring
soft skin, flowing white limbs
I've decide to love myself
Because I only have one life time as this person
and I'm not going to change
I've already spent enough of these sixteen years
molding my skin and soul into a form I'll never hold
I will not say anymore
“I'll probably be pretty when I'm older.”
or “Maybe I'll be smarter..”
As of today, I am officially
smart
and
pretty
And I've made myself the authority on that
I am now the only voice of authority that can truly determine what I'm worth
And according to myself, I've decided I am worth a lot
No one can deny me respect, acceptance, and love
besides myself
why?
Because I said so.
And after so long debating whether my word was of value
Why wouldn't it be?
So from this day forward,
I love myself, my spirit, my soul,
my gentle body and brains
Because why shouldn't I?



Thursday, November 1, 2012

Getting There, Grain Of Sand


I've got a lot of questions
Why does poetry often come served with salt confusion?
Is it wrong to say I don't know my heart but I want you there?
Is it right to always ask God the answers to questions I shouldn't know?
And why do the young often feel so very old?
My dad says don't push angst
But sometimes even the best envelope heart can't hold freeze dried drama
Junior year, still starring at the X on my treasure map, not any closer
No special story, my old heroes killed off one by one
See, That's the problem with a mind prone to critical analysis
I had this formula:
Be random
dress a little differently
act smart
giggle often
formula for self acceptance, my own acceptance of myself
But maybe, I'm not ready to accept myself
Maybe, I'm living past, present, future
And I've sculpted myself for a long time now
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my own opinion of myself will always hurt me
I'm just seaweed scraps, driftwood bones
waiting for substance, waiting for real form
an owl woman or a butterfly child...I'm waiting
Right now though, I just want to accept that I'm whole
I'm the cocoon of everything I want and will be
But I want it back
That feeling: I can conquer the sky and sea
the walk of a warrior princess, bloodied knees but head held high
A cloud walker, ink spinner, dream broker
I'm sick of tasting sand when I bite my lip
...But if we can see the world reflected in a grain of sand
If a single house holds a thousand secrets
then a grain of sand knows the notes of a thousand songs
One doll, the lives of a dozen children grown and gone
the pattern of a thousand lives connected on a single sidewalk
and if this one beach I', standing on knows the weight of a million feet
Then who am I to say I want to be more than a grain of sand on my beach right now?
Who am I to believe I need to feel strong, to be strong?
Who am I to tell myself I am not good enough for my own self?
Who am I?
I'm a grain of sand, flower petal, bird feather
...and that's enough for now
Because it doesn't take an entire ocean to change the entire course of history
just one wave
And I'm getting there
Obscurity is a place where the world unfolds in cracked eucalyptus leaves and song lyrics
till you're ready to take on the full kaleidoscope view
And I'm getting there
One grain of sand
a cracked blue fingernail
dusty shoes
I'm just preparing for a self coronation
I'm barely bat mitzvah-ed into this world, I'm a new soul
Young bud, waiting for rose
I'm getting there
I'm getting there
So right now, right here
Sitting on the cold sand of Bolinas Beach
I'm burying the words, writing the intention
I accept that “one grain of sand is enough”
and waiting till my words hit the ocean
waiting till my intention finds my wave
Cuz I'm getting there
I'm getting there


Tuesday, September 11, 2012

I Pledge

Division is an ugly word.
Division over politics, over opinion, over views
See, we aren't different in order to create
verbal, physical, mental wars with each other
we are different because have you ever seen a building built with just a hammer?
This toolbox has screwdrivers, nails, wrenches- that's why we work.
Why are shovels waging wars against rakes?
Why do we push each other down in order to climb up our own ladders?
I guess, I just remembered it as One nation
One Nation under God
See, This isn't about whether you're atheist, agnostic or flaming fundamentalist, Democrat, Republican, Independent, straight, gay, black, white, female, male
This isn't about your politics
This is about our heart
All humans, all history indirectly leading up to our present
I don't know the meaning of true love
But I know the purpose of what we've created
Religions
Petitions
Government
was in order to find a way to love better, love stronger
its called unity
When I was six, the twin towers went down
My mom showed me a postcard with two big buildings, crying
It was just two buildings
Why did it matter?
I was far away, I was six, I was miles and miles and plane rides away
But now I know why it matters
Because when an entire country is founded on acceptance, on unity
On freedom
everything will try to stop that
Everything will attack love
Including ourselves
This world isn't shaped for love
circles allways loop back into pain
But that's why we need to keep building more than ever
I'm sick of people saying America sucks, I'm not really with America, this isn't the REAL America
We, I, You, We created this America
This is our America
We ARE America
We are human, broken, flawed, often messed up beyond recognition
But there is beauty in imperfection
There's hope at the bottom of the box
There's always hope.
And it wasn't just today that lives were lost, it's every day
It's been every day, every year, every decade
that people have died for this hope
Died on a hope
A hope that one country can one day find how to love
love one another
love each other
So I pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. 
 one nation under God
 one nation under love
One nation that messes up, that fights, that creates division, that hurts

But never lost its hope.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Weeds

My life has always been a series of petals
changing, falling, picked away
forget me not
forget me not
I have thin roots in order to pretend they don't grow deep
this world has too many gardeners, too many pickers, too many broken stems
so I grew thorns
I couldn't grow tall, so I grew strong
I learned to be a crimson red, to bare my soul but hide my heart
I am my own garden
my own rain
my own weed
But we were a yellow flower chain friendship
and I let myself be picked
but only because I picked you
a garden of two flowers, wildflowers in bloom
Blue bonnets, yellow daisies and outstretched roots to 
catch the world in our giggles, dreams and aspirations
we could see the blue skies and we knew we could grow there
with our rain
our soil
The Sun shining through our different clouds
When the storms came, we poured out our raindrops together
we'd lived through thunder before
no fair flower friendships
no wilted roses here
young, vibrant, strong, thick stems and bright hearts
But I admit, I lost a thorn
I can't be a warrior rose, all the time
that's why I had you
to keep the weeds inside me out
 But when I watched you uprooted, potted and taken away
the storm drowned out my voice
The lightening  was  too quick, too bright, too strong
You took my thorn with you
and you've left me in my garden
next to the dirt impression of where you used to be
scattered soil and unsaid words
I told you I was a gypsy
that I sometimes brush people off my aprons like crumbs
not because I don't care, but because I do my traveling in the wintertime
But I promised that that would never be you
 and I am a bird that never could build the right nest, always searching
a de-thorned rose face
A child with with a rosy complexion and a story she never told
 But who told you flowers don't have hearts?
They lied.
I guess,we were just just two flower girls
who got swallowed up by the weeds










Friday, May 25, 2012

Sea Glass

Hope is the thing with feathers.That perches in the soul..
-Emily Dickinson
~also inspired by the character Roxanna the Angel in the wonderful book Moonlight On The Avenue Of Faith~


At night, I dreamt I had wings. Wings: soft, small, emerald, sea green wings that gently brushed against my bare shoulders when I walked under the night sky. Wings that I would wrap around me when it was a cold night. Wings that would carry me gently into the clouds and fly me away.


away..
away...
away....


My entire life my mother told me I was a runaway, like my ancestors before. I was a wild gypsy at heart.I would never settle, the sea and earth would always call my name. She told me it was a curse, that my feet would always bleed, but I would never be able to escape. I would never fly.


Maybe she once dreamed too. She must have dreamed of running, of flying,of escape. But of my childhood memories of her,I mostly remember her strong arms, the way she refused to touch me when I cried, how she never spoke more than she needed to. I remember her smell; of wood, smoke and soap.


 She threatened to tie me to my bed at night, to cage me. She reminded me I was never to run, because those who run will only chase themselves in circles. And I believed she loved me. But she was afraid. She was the one tied to her bed, the one caged. So she tried to make me accept the fate she could never resign herself to: that she, that we, could never run away. We would never fly. In my head, I began to call her the caged bird.I refused to become like her. 


I don't know when I first dreaming of flying away. I am not even sure what I wanted to fly away from. I was not a happy child, but since I knew of no other way of existing than in the grey moods of my family, I didn't realize there was any other way to live. I was simply alive. And I knew I wanted to fly.


 I had this small idea that I was something special. Something different than a small child, born to a poor child, with a mother that never embraced me and a father that never embraced her. I felt that deep inside me was this sort of glow, this warmth that if I concentrated enough I could spread to the tips of my fingers and almost see. I told my mother about it once. She shook her head and said "It's called hope."
I asked her "Do you have a hope, mama?"
She sighed, quietly. "Sometimes."


She never told me what it was. 


 But my hope convinced me that if I pushed it hard enough that maybe it would spread all over me and gently grow feathers from my back. So I would stand on my bed, when the rest of the house had gone to sleep. I would open my window, the one with the broken screen. Then quietly I would take the torn screen out and face myself towards the open window. Then I would close my eyes and concentrate. I would push the warmth inside me all through my body, till I could feel warmth pulsing through me. I would feel it press my skin, trying to burst out. I could feel it spiraling and swirling through my legs. Then I would begin to imagine my wings.


My deep sea emerald wings, with soft feathers. My wings that shimmered. My wings that caught moonbeams and danced with the soft light of the stars. The wings that would one day take me away from here. Away from my small bed and away from the stale days. My wings that would show me the Caspian sea, the golden hills, the cold mountains. My wings that would show me the secrets my family held from me, that would tell me the fairytales my mom refused to let me read. My wings would be my freedom. My wings would make me free.


And as I imagined my wings, as I pushed my eyelids together, willed myself not to open them, sometimes, something would happen. I would feel a warm breeze against my cheek, or think I felt my foot float off my bed. I would swear I felt a feather grow from my back, or smell the sea. But as soon as I opened my eyes, I would be simply in my room. I would be simply standing on my bed in my too small white nightgown, surrounded by fading and flaking paint of the four walls of my room. Nothing was different, nothing was new. I had no wings. So every night I tried again and every night I crawled into my creaky bed, wingless. But I never gave up on growing my wings.. through weeks, months and years.


So on one night, many later but much like the others, I stood on my bed, facing my window. My nightgown was now above my knees, pulled across my chest. My chest had begun to bud and I pulled at the nightgown uncomfortably. My legs had grown longer and I stared down at their whiteness, surprised by their length. I placed my hands on my hips. They felt alien, curved and widened.


 I sensed this was my last chance, that night I had to fly. I had to fly before womanhood claimed me, before my mother demanded to be free of me, before marriage came to cage me. I needed to fly tonight. 


I needed to fly before the young man next door with the brown eyes and heavy eyebrows stopped only making eyes at me and began to speak to me. I needed to fly before the matchmaker with her smell of tobacco and cracking voice began to pinch my cheeks and appraise me like her newest ware. I needed to fly before I was forced to wear a shawl over my long hair to protect my womanhood, to light the sabbath candles in a new home that I would be ruled over in. 


So I closed my eyes and felt my warmth inside. I coaxed it through me, hummed quietly, asking the warmth to spread to my back, to finally grow out my wings. I knew they were there, I saw them in my dreams. I just needed them to finally bloom from my body. I felt the warmth reverberate through me.
wings
wings
wings
whispering under my breath
wings
wings
wings


I opened my eyes, slowly.


Nothing.




Like the nights before, like the years before, I was still wingless. I crawled into my bed. I pulled myself into a ball and I wept. All the tears I had saved through the nights came welling through my eyes, burdened my eyelashes and ran down my cheeks. Tears began to run; streams of water from my eyes.  And my tears were salty. They were salty like the Caspian sea and they shone...


Emerald green.


I caught one green, luminescent tear on my tongue and swallowed it. And then sighing, I began to fall into a deep sleep. I dreamt of my emerald wings, felt them grow from my shoulders and back, push through my soft white skin. 


I was no longer wearing my white nightgown, my skin was bare. I saw the moonlight wrap itself around me, clothe me in beams. I felt my wings brush against my bare shoulders. I dreamt I stood up on my bed and floated out the window, flew into the sky. I grasped at clouds and stared into the windows of sleeping children. I perched in a tree and watched two lovers embrace in a park, saw from above a man run away from the police into a dark alley. I winked at stars and danced through the tops of trees. And slowly I came upon the emerald sea.


I curled my wings and slowly descended down. The ocean breeze danced around me. I felt the cold, soft sand between my toes, walked toward the green waters. I dipped my fingers in the sea, water dripping down my hands in cold, wet streaks. I cupped a handful to my mouth, tasted the salt. I tasted my emerald tears. This ocean..it was my ocean. It was my tears. And deep inside me, I dreamt I laughed. An ocean of tears, I created my own ocean. And I laughed.


As the night wore on, I curled myself on the shores of my ocean. I curled myself into a ball, my pillow a pile of cold sand and slowly lulled by the crashing waves, I slept. 




And as all good dreams do, mine ended. It was the light of morning and I woke in my little bed, in my little grey colored room, in my faded life. I was still in my small nightgown. I sighed and felt a tear run down my cheek. It was a clear, water tear. It tasted of tears, not ocean. I had only dreamed, I had only dreamt. I rubbed the sleep and tears out of my eyes.  I pulled myself out of bed and set my feet on the floor. 


I felt something soft touch my foot. I looked down.


There at my feet, lay a single emerald green feather. 








Monday, May 14, 2012

To My Middle School Self


Dear Middle School Me,

Honey, I know
I know what it's like to be born with 2 hearts and extra sensitive skin
to pour everything into everyone and just end up playing therapist for the world
Honey, I know what it's like to realize your sequined dresses have begun to pull across your chest
and red clogs grown too small
It's called growing up and honey, I promise it hurts a lot
but not too much
you're strong, girl
It will just take a while for you to realize flowers are a form of strength
they are in danger of picking, of being squished in clamped sweaty palms, so very delicate
but they come up every spring and they grow roots deep
You're always going to be a flower
And yes girl, you're strong
like a wild rose or a white callalily
And I've smeared enough eyeliner on my nose to know that you are never going to be a perfectly painted canvas
And that's alright, you never needed to be anyways
You have your daddy's sea sparkle eyes and those high cheek bones
You can't see them yet, but you're going to thin out
you won't get any taller
but you'll always be talented at hiding in cupboards and running in heels
It's going to take a while to feel pretty, but one day you are going to be able to look at yourself in a window reflection and whisper “That girl, she's not bad.”
You are always going to cry over math, it doesn't get any easier
You will spend long nights cursing geometry and the twisted mathematicians who created compasses
but you are going to learn not to define yourself by what you're bad at, because you'll find a heartbeat in words
Keep writing, honey
Honey, I know it's hard to be an flower child with a soft soul, but I promise you as long as you keep writing
you'll never be alone
So don't be so guarded, let yourself breath and never ever be ashamed of your tears
they will become a strength
This world is too dry, it's going to need your watering
Honey, you will never be able to change the world on your own or find your reflection in mud
so don't be afraid to hold someone's hand when they need it, but more importantly
be honest when you need a hand
I've watched you pretend for years that you don't need people.
Honey, I know you well enough to know you are always going to be a horrible liar
You try so hard to control, to be the impact slammed against cracked souls
but influence, don't control
Honey girl, I know
I know, honey, I know
And yes, in case you were wondering,
You are beautiful despite all the inadequacy you feel
But no, you are never going to be good enough for yourself
We'll learn to accept that one day.
And it will take a while to find yourself, but one day you will be able to say
“honey, I know you.”
And honey, you will get stronger, it will all get better
I promise
Because honey, I know.
I've been there.


Saturday, May 12, 2012

Eye Shadow


~Performed this at Tri-District Slam~

She told me poetry just wasn't “her thing.”
But the way she said it made poetry sound like a color of eyeshadow that was only flattering if you were born with the right eye color
Like I was born with a poet's eye and hence smeared poetry on my eyelids was a shade only I could pull off
That I could wake up in the morning and say “I think a little Shakespeare sparkle would look good.”
Or was she suggesting that I don't wear lipstick because I already have sonnets stained on my lips?
But when I look through my makeup bag of dried out chap stick and caked glimmer I've never used, I don't see any bottles or compacts labeled “Prose, apply daily, twice if teenage angst breaks out.”
There's this saying that inside of everyone is the soul of a poet who died young
and I don't know what saved mine but I know she's isn't my substitute for a bottle of foundation
rather, she is my foundation.
Because Poetry isn't a way to powder color into my cheeks or pretend
I have a fairer complexion than I do
Yes, it's a way I view the world
but it's also a lifestyle I choose
I'm not getting on stage because I have a physical addiction to complaining in poetic form or I have a broken heart that oozes out lyrical love sick words promising to soak our feet in salty poetic tears
That's not how I view poetry
I once sat in a room of short haired, warm skin, soft souled old woman in a closed library as they taught be Japanese haiku and haibon
that room was the poetry
At lunch I like to pick wild flowers and weave garlands during science
and my favorite food is my mother's matzo ball soup
Every morning I see fog roll over Mount Tam like an ancestral dragon in the mist
When I look around me, I see, feel, taste, become poetry
Because for me, Poetry is love
my personal chicken soup for the soul, my soul cooking for the world
Poetry is the way I love
love of the idea that humanity still has hope as long as yellow flowers peek their petaled heads from dew heavy dawns
Poetry is my mom's sunny hair and sneaking outside late at night to talk to my favorite stars
their twinkled replies
The way I make sense of bruises, tears and broken history
by finding the poem in shards of glass, deserted dreams and scraped knees
It isn't a magical formula, a tube of cosmetics I apply to make myself look intelligent
It's just the weight of worn textbooks on my back
the copy of Little Woman I dropped in the bathtub 3 times
I don't have an amazing story
Just a lot of love
Love of others, of myself, of beauty, of words
Even when I'm yelling, even when I'm slamming words into your face
Poetry is the idea that broken emotion soaked thoughts sewn together can create something beautiful
And that's why, for me, poetry is love
So when I say, “I wrote you a poem, may I read it please?”
all I'm really saying is
I love you.




Monday, May 7, 2012

Being


I am built of pasts
all compounded to one me
I am tears I shed
the bruises that sculpted me
I am built of matzah ball soup
and grandma's hugs
the taste of lemons on your tongue
with a scoop of sugar
I am the aleph-bet
a living history of my people
I am a girl
defined by her heart
judged by her actions
I am the flower in my hair
weaved into life
growing strong and bright
but delicate
and in danger of being picked
I am the pencil pressed notes
The hours I pour mental energy in
till there is no time left for
anything else
I am a deep slumber
at peace with vivid dreams
but plagued with nightmares
I am the stars
Shining
but my light hits earth years after it first shone
burning out of gas
falling star
shooting star
I am like no one else
but every wide eyed-owl child in a sea of faces
just a grain of sand between your feet
a shell in your hands
I am a Jew
Russian, German
tainted with the blood of history
cursed by the sin of men
carrying burdens forced by no fault of my own
generational traits I will have to face
parts of me sculpted by acceptance
built on cracking lies
I am an old building
strong and regal once
but a fading beauty
needing repair
I am the ocean
wild and free
the stallion in the field
I am my past, present and future
I am every moment that ever happened
all leading up
to another human
just another me
Just another Inkspinner
spinning out prose to save the threads of my humanity


Monday, April 16, 2012

Grapes

I couldn't sleep last night.
I sat outside under the stars and starred up at their flickers between the trees.
I don't understand what I did or why I lost you.
It's like the Little Prince and his rose- I will always wonder if I drew the sheep wrong, if I let my rose get eaten
Did I draw my sheep wrong? Did I let a baobab tree in where it shouldn't be?
I don't know why I thought I had the right to trust.
I never trust.
But I did.
And somehow I don't regret it.
I will never regret you.
I'm not forever young as I would like to believe, but I pray to either feel my skin turn old or
 back to the soft baby skin
It's funny, I want to be any age but this.
I want to understand. I'm trying, my dear. I never wanted this pain, I never wanted you to feel this pain.
And I wonder if you feel it.
Feel how I feel and felt, sitting thin clothed under the night sky, watching for the Little Prince, but mostly  wondering if maybe I can see you.
send you a message through the California clouds
I don't know what you think of me now, but I hope you think of me.
And I hope you see this.
He told me not to talk to you, so I won't. Because I still love you, and I know love doesn't stir up strife.
I never meant, I never tried to create this.
I'm trying, I promise.
I've promised before, and every word I say
I meant
I mean
I will mean again.
I love you.
I don't want to say goodbye and I don't want to let you go.
I understand I have to-but know I never really will.
Ever
You will always be in my words, my heart, my prayer, my eyes
You told me to be strong and I'm trying
I'm trying
No matter what you think of me now, I want you to stay strong, to know you're beautiful-puffy hair, those hands and large whites of your eyes.
You are so beautiful.
So beautiful there were moments I looked at you and I almost believed in luck.
that I was so lucky
Lucky to have someone who believed in me no matter what, you told me I was worth it always.
You're worth it
always
I don't know if you'll see this but I want you to know
You'll go to Yale, Stanford, Harvard
You'll go to the sun, to the moon, to the ends of the earth
you, you'll touch the stars
you'll change the world
You start fire
you'll create floods
You will be the force of nature
It hurts that I won't be there besides you, that I can't say goodbye
that I may never know if you wanted to say goodbye to me
But I hope one day I can say hello.
Because I will never stop loving you.
I promised that before
and I promise it now.
And I never break a promise.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

This Is How It Works-White Lion

This is how it works


 This is for when we first lifted our faces to the sky and swallowed the snow that winter day. Small and bundled, red noses and cheeks. I once made you go first on the sleigh, and watched you freefall into a snow covered tree. I used to finish your sentences, with my words, what I thought you should mean. I still do that sometimes. I still lecture you, not because you're smaller than me now, but because I can't get my words out just right.


Funny. I've never had any trouble getting my words out. But words are stickiest when they are meant to cover the ones closest to us. I don't always know what to say to your shag mop hair and freckles and big blueberry eyes. We are so alike, yet so different and so set about. Fire and Ice. Fire and Fire.  We have the same determined drive you know. We have the same confidence, sarcastic, often cocky but more self assured than anything. We are both as stubborn as our father, as willed as the oceans crashing around us. We assume a cape of quiet and wear it as a shield till we break out in booming voices. 


 I was always the parrot costume squawking at you in your white lion costume. I sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in that talent show and you pretended to snore on stage, in your zipped up lion fur. We always were performers. Sometimes I yell at you to get my way and then play my I'm tired, I had a bad day, you started it card and come out as shrew to get my way again. I'll yell at you again, when you try to open my door tonight. Tonight for the millionth time, knock on my door..
Can I come in?
Why?!!
I..I'm bored..I have a question or I..nevermind


Why? Because the White Lion never got over his Parrot. And we all know a parrot doesn't like to be disturbed, she needs her space. She needs an entire tree canopy to herself and she doesn't understand the white lion. When she was younger she used to hold his hand and they would skip down the street, when he was scared he crawled into her blue and yellow bed. We made plays, I forced you to play all the strange parts and kept the monologues to myself. If I was the proud Pilgrim, you just had to be the dancing Indian. If I were the space invader, you were the bad alien. 


We had this two twin bears with heart stitched overalls. We created a world named Heartland, made them a house and created complex stories about them. I used to lay on the bottom bunk with our little brother and tell you stories about Odie and Codie, two dogs that were always in scrapes. I did voices and motions and kicked and hollered till you screamed in laughter. I told you all about camp, about the treasure hunts and rivers. We built fairy houses and I believed much longer than you did. I still believe. And you don't.


Now you tell me I'm weird, that I am really really strange. Granted. I tell you you're needy, you're annoying. Granted.


But then who isn't?


And no matter what I call you, no matter how many times I kick you out of my room, lecture you, steal your favorite belt, yell at your spelling or tell you to go away, no matter how many times you are embarrassed that I still dance to music in supermarket aisles, that you tell me I'm weird or say I'm being mean or take change from my change jar, beg me to play Halo or scream at my dog...


You will always be my little white lion boy. You will always be my baby brother. And though you may never ever see this, I will always love you.


Because that is how this works.


Monday, February 6, 2012

Remember





I remember painting lines across my face in lipstick, hollering and throwing tea over the balcony, home made Boston Tea Party. I remember the metallic taste of the spoon against my tongue, cream rich ice cream melting. I remember the heat of my cheeks, pushing tears back because the words wouldn't come and water loosened them. But sometimes
water just chokes the words out...


I remember clearing dirt of my fingernails, hiding them so no one thought I was unclean or dirty. I remember the size of my fingers, cracked doll hands against the long tapered hands of others. "So small!"
I'm not so small.
 I remember when he first towered over me and grinned wide as a mile and patted me on the head. "Hello, little sister."
I'm not so little.


I remember telling him I didn't agree, trembling because the word 'no!' was wrong, bitter, against. I remember yelling because, that was the only way my voice would come out. Loud against the backdrop.
Excuse me, but I couldn't hear you over the sound of my own thoughts.
But Excuse me, You couldn't hear me over the thoughts of you own thoughts, either.


Swirls. I remember the mouse pitch of a sneeze between vibrato. I remember blue eyes with ice twinkles, brown eyes like a baby calf, warm and soft. I remember wild sea green eyes, kelp colored pupils. 


I remember shivering because I was cold.
I remember being cold because no one was looking, no one saw me. 
I shivered against being invisible. 
Goosebumps for vision.


I remember the lyrics to the songs. I remember writing lyrics to the songs in my heads, but they fell out silent ink to paper. 
"I want to be an astronaut and get high, break the barriers to the sky..I just wanna be free from the confines of gravity." 
"I want to be the one to put it to a song."


You make the lyrics and the way I write, but no one knows. Inkheart, Little Woman, Paddington Bear with covers ripped off, dropped in bathtubs, thumbed, spined, dog-earred. 


I remember screaming the lyrics till they lost meaning, dancing in my room alone to the Killers, dancing with her. Fedora on and pose in front of mirror. I remember rapping out of tune, laughing at the fallacies of my white beatlessness.


I remember putting on hoop skirts and somersaulting, leather gloves and feathered masks. I remember forcing the zipper up, inching dresses on. 


I remembering buying the denim mini skirt and my dad saying I shouldn't wear it because he hated the idea. I wore leggings to cover the idea of exposure. I remember the first time I wore makeup and smeared eyeshadow all over my face. I vanished under the lids of brown paint eyes. I remember the hair on the floor, freedom and shake.


I remember the bright lights and the rise and falls of my voice. "It's an obvious fact to me..." The power as the words hit the air, mixing with static. I got this. I have this. Reaching out for the electricity in the room and sending the pulse through my skin.


I remember the stories told about my great grandmother, I remember her candy colored beads and the squeaky  parakeet. I read her Dr. Seuss on her deathbed and cried when she couldn't here it. 
"She's not listening, Mom!"


I remember the news "It's a boy!" and then crying, because I wanted "It's a girl!" I remember staying up late doing homework and yelling "GET OUT!" Trying to fix yelling by hugs: a sister remedy, mix and stir. 


I remember that I remember him too much. I remember that I remember her too much. I remember that no one really knows how much I remember and I remember that maybe that is good. 


I desired to be remembered in ink, in book spines, in the curve of your cheeks and the straightening of your wrinkles,broad shoulders, long hair. I remember that I came from matzah ball soup and yellow stars, history and the crash of destiny. I remember the silent vowels and the dropped syllables.


I remember me. I remember you. I remember us. I remember them.


I remember.


Remember that I'll remember you.


Red ribbon tied around the finger, promise-to remember.

"I want warm summer nights, to lie in a hammock, staring at the stars, telling you stories. "

"I want warm summer nights, to lie in a hammock, staring at the stars, telling you stories. "
"When asked not to make waves, I just smiled and said, don't worry this is just a ripple"