Recipe For Your First Daughter (2023)

Recipe for Your First Daughter

(Best served in quiet contemplation of who she could have been, with a mix of Pride and Guilt)

Start with a firstborn daughter, layer in expectations of being the smart one, the successful one, with good grades and better manners, the only remark on her report card being “she’s brilliant, but she talks too much”

Chop off the rebellious roots, the untamed dreams, but keep the safe, stable life choices in case anyone ever needs to lean on her

Boil away any sense of individual; her life will always be in response to someone else’s needs before her own

Incorporate siblings into children she didn’t have or ask to be responsible for, but do it anyway because someone has to and why not her

Simmer over years of pretending everything is fine until it boils over in the middle of an argument, in the Kwik Trip parking lot, or a staff meeting, never where it needs to and always at the worst time

Garnish with an anxiety disorder disguised as “compassion” and “empathy”

Serve cold-hearted and years too late, on Gramma’s worn-out potholders, with her same worn-out smile.

-   -   -

Published originally in Portage Lit Mag's 2023 issue. The original version can be found here: https://portagemagazine.org/recipe-for-your-first-daughter/

Release Your Inner Femmonster (2023)

RELEASE YOUR INNER FEMMONSTER

I want to be feminine in the way that

The Sphinx is feminine

Or Baphomet, or Dionysus.

Dangerously Feminine.

Threateningly Feminine.

The kind of feminine that breaks norms

And ignores outdated opinions of what a

Body should look like or shroud themselves in.

I want to the the type of feminine that people

Tell tales about to scare little kids away from

Hot Topic and Tumblr.

"Beware the ones with the wild-colored hair

They come at night, trapping you in their 

Fishnets and stabbing you with eyeliner

Sharper than any sword."

I want to be the type of feminine that grinds all those

"Cover up" comments into the powder of their foundation.

I want to be feminine like fish scales and horse tails

Like chalcedony and lemon cakes

Like chopping wood in Demonias.

I want to be so terrifyingly feminine that no one

Ever touches me without permission again.

That my very visage is a warning,

like a poison dart frog or

Mountain Dew.

Feminine like the local cryptid,

Indescribably alluring,

A whisper in the trees calling you closer

A shiny coin at the bottom of a mountain stream.

Feminine like broken stained glass at the foot of an altar.

Feminine like a proclamation of war.

I want femininity to be a choice

Not a default setting to be assigned.

A standard of being that demands respect.

That takes up space.

That refuses to kneecap its sentences just to

Make room for others’ egos.

Whoever decided liking sparkles and pink and

expressing emotions meant I can’t

Fend for myself,

I just want to talk.

Never mind the fishnets and eyeliner,

I just want to show you

What I mean when I say

Femme fatale.

-   -   -

Published originally in Portage Lit Mag's 2023 issue. The original version can be found here: https://portagemagazine.org/release-your-inner-femmonster/

Great Expectations (2023)

Great Expectations

You’re like bubblegum stuck in my hair

I think I’ve got every trace of

You removed but there are

Days where I find more

Stuck deep in the roots or

Little bits at the edges.

I finally cut you out but now

I’m left with a jagged pixie

Cut that doesn’t suit me at all.

I shave my head, desperate to

Remove every piece of you.

Now I look in the mirror and

I’m reminded of you regardless.

How luscious I was before you

How barren I feel after.

You didn’t break my heart,

I did it for you.

You’re moving on.

I’m not your concern.

I never was.

You can continue searching that

Bottomless ocean you call a heart

For the meaning of existence without

Me to weigh you down, keep you

Grounded for fear you’ll forget to

Breathe.

You can fly as close to the sun as you want

Without me warning you of

Dripping wax.

You can burn out to your

Heart’s content.

I only ever stifled you, anyway.

Even when it’s easier to forget I exist,

I hope you remember Hay Creek.

I hope you remember the makeshift canopy fort

Silk sheets and woven wool,

White wine and gummi worm charcuterie,

Sandalwood and lavender.

I hope you remember the squishy,

Broken bits we took out of hiding and

Handled like museum quality relics

Only to shove them back in a dusty box

Left for the next moment of

Performative vulnerability.

I hope you remember the

Bargain jeans and sticker bins

Painted pottery and

Deli sandwiches in a snowy cemetery.

I hope you remember me trying to love you

Even when if felt impossible without

Divine intervention

Or an alternate universe.

I hope you find a love that fits you

Like glass shards in a mosaic

Completing the picture I wish I was a part of.

-   -   -

Published originally in Portage Lit Mag's 2023 issue. The original publication can be found here: https://portagemagazine.org/great-expectations/

Frogs (2023)

Frogs

When I was little

Before my sister was born

Before I knew much of anything about pain and suffering

My grandfather convinced me that hail was

Little white frogs

Jumping around in the grass

Never mind where they fell from,

Look how they hop when they hit the ground!

His name was Kermit,

I trusted he knew all things about frogs

The big green ones that lived in the koi pond

And scattered when I tried to catch them in my net

Or little white ones that fell from the sky

And disappeared in the afternoon sun.

I'm much older now

I know much more about pain and suffering

I've read his memoir

Learned about the miracles,

The fishhook in the eye,

The shrapnel missing his exposed body

Killing his friends through an eye slit in the bunker wall.

No one in his family lived to be 46,

but this little, stubborn old man

Frail in body but strong in wit,

Nearly doubled that age,

Refusing to be a victim of fate time and again.

I heard it all again at that church in Poysippi

Listening to the pastor read the sermon

The little old man wrote

Because of course he planned his own funeral

Writing drafts up until he couldn't hold the pen

I can't help but wonder if the perfectionism and

procrastination combination

Is genetic

Like heart disease

Or a dry sense of humor.

I find myself looking out the window

With my little sister

Telling her about the little white frogs

Look how they hop when they hit the ground!

I can't help but see that little old man

Smiling back through my reflection on the glass

And I wonder if he felt these moments

Were worth all that pain and suffering.

-   -   -   

Published originally in Portage Lit Mag's 2022 issue. The original can be found here: https://portagemagazine.org/frogs/

Home (2021)

Home

Where I’m from 

For some folks 

Is apple pie and Jesus. 

A comfortable, 

Unchallenged existence 

Filled with Bud Light, 

Cornfields, 

And dirty looks at people with colored hair 

And piercings. 

 

Home to them is avoidant. 

All scripture but no heart, 

All hate and no depth. 

 

Home to them is a place I am ashamed to be associated with. 

Me, 

With my Paganism 

And love for girls 

And boys 

And everyone in between. 

Me,  

With my “voice” 

And “opinions” 

And resistance to complacency. 

 

Home to me is boiled bones  

And tanned hides, 

Open hearts and mixed drinks. 

It’s a love that’s not conditional on  

How I spend my Sundays 

Or who I spend them with.

 

Home is all the folks 

Who don’t see their own validity 

Who pretend to be something they’re not 

Out of necessity. 

 

Home is knowing I can’t change where I come from, 

But I can change who comes from it. 

I can be the home they never got, 

Open my door to those who can’t ever go back 

Welcome them with a smile, 

A cup of tea, 

And a hug that breathes,  

 

You are allowed to exist.

-   -   -

Published originally in Portage Lit Mag's 2021 issue. The original can be found here: https://portagemagazine.org/home-4/