paint people
Childhood is stilted memory melting snow refrozen on the sharpened ends of pine needles the slowly expanding water droplets grows as the sun crawls inch by inch over the horizon
& I put rusted buckets beneath & the plinking creates a slow motioned underscoring of every memory growing slippery & hard to grasp holding onto this remainder of untainted joy is all I seem to do lately ignore my tarnished self & long for the days before patina dared to set in I go to the store & buy out every bottle of silver polish they have
& ask them to order more I return home & polish until the friction sparks to flames along my skin & I wait half a second too long before blowing them out one by one like birthday candles for a wish I don't particularly care to come true
& I know that opening the basement door & walking down the splintered wooden steps will not make six years old again & of course I know that being six will not tamp down the perpetual sadness & lull my heartbeat to an unfelt calmness but I scratch acrylic paint under my nails grip the unpainted figurine in my fist
& turn the knob anyways
Childhood is stilted memory melting snow refrozen on the sharpened ends of pine needles the slowly expanding water droplets grows as the sun crawls inch by inch over the horizon
& I put rusted buckets beneath & the plinking creates a slow motioned underscoring of every memory growing slippery & hard to grasp holding onto this remainder of untainted joy is all I seem to do lately ignore my tarnished self & long for the days before patina dared to set in I go to the store & buy out every bottle of silver polish they have
& ask them to order more I return home & polish until the friction sparks to flames along my skin & I wait half a second too long before blowing them out one by one like birthday candles for a wish I don't particularly care to come true
& I know that opening the basement door & walking down the splintered wooden steps will not make six years old again & of course I know that being six will not tamp down the perpetual sadness & lull my heartbeat to an unfelt calmness but I scratch acrylic paint under my nails grip the unpainted figurine in my fist
& turn the knob anyways
Rachael Gay is a poet and artist living in Fargo, North Dakota. Her work has appeared in journals such as Anti-Heroin Chic, The Laurel Review, Rogue Agent, Ghost City Review, Gramma Poetry, FreezeRay Poetry, Rising Phoenix Review and others as well as the anthology What Keeps Us Here (2019).