Just the Other Stuff
Published with The Feminine Collective November 2019
poetry
​
​When I ran away for the first time
I hid in my closet in my bedroom
with Judy Blume and a flashlight
until my dad found me and brought me home.
Matter seemed so solid and still then.
The second time I skipped town
I hopped on my red ten-speed bike
and took to the Village Mall bookstore
where I sat steeping and stewing in
the scent of new ink and paper and
Salty Pretzels until I lost myself
in The Secret Garden. A man who
smelled of moth balls and coffee
asked me if I planned to buy the book
or just steal the words without
paying for them. There were gaping
spaces between his pieces and parts.
The third time I left I was a dancing woman
in a silk dress and a floppy straw hat
with purple flowers. I camouflaged myself under
the slopey ceilings in my Nana’s attic
walk in closet by the teeny window
with Jane Austen, some robins on the roof,
and everything I owned packed up
in my heart. I may have melted or boiled
that day. Yesterday I left and
No One knew. “What is it? Something new
this time or just the other stuff?” No One
has never seen a person swirling away
atom by atom. I would have unpacked
my heart with Elie Wiesel with my notes
in the margin but he ran away during
the move. Instead I limped down the driveway
and back with Luna and then ordered Elie on Amazon.
I am shifting. Between my words there is so much
space and I am lost among them.