Geri

Crusty child, 
rub your dry eyes, 
flap your birdlike limbs, 
stare with an open mouth. 

Are you hungry? 
Are you sad? 
Are you tired of being a crusty child? 
 

Pale peach fading 
Into hazy blue sky 
Backdropped against lush greenery 

 

And it was at that time…poetry arrived. 
Or rather, 
I fell into it. 
Idly turning pages, 
lips mindlessly mouthing words, 
transcribing sounds into sentences. 
From mud it called me. 

I’d see a few things: 

The sweet girl my father claims I used to be. 
The daughter who adored her dad, 
making guitar sounds as a way of insisting 
he play his favorite musician 

Is it wrong for me to ask so much of the world? To ask it to be happy, healthy, and kind? My concern is innately selfish, since my own well being depends on its state of mind.  

I know I can’t grasp the fullness of what happened here. Even as I live and breathe on stolen land, I will never understand the depth of what was done. Never could. Never will.