the blueshift journal

We pick wet flowers and mix them into the tire-indents

where our parents' cars should be. This is flower stew.

We play pretend––I am the robin, and she is the blue jay.

We play reality––I am the tire, and she is the car.

Her parents don't sleep together and neither do mine.

We part at sunset. I run up the stairs. My mind is always faster

than my body. My mother sees the scrapes on my knees

and threatens to hit me with a wire hanger. It never reaches

flesh. Still, I can never walk past a sharp corner

without bruising myself. I climb the monkey bars at midnight.

Sorry doesn't mean a thing, never laugh too hard, always

think ahead––this is the story my father reads to me

at night. I bring this with me as I swing my legs and squeeze

my frame through the bars. I climb on top of the rungs.

I sit then stand. I laugh too hard, then jump

down. At dawn, my father wakes me up. I lay in bed

and wonder if it is possible to go back to sleep

and wake up tomorrow younger than I am today.