nevermind + poetry.

poems written like stars

when i am young i ask my grandfather why his face is so wrinkly, and my mother shushes me with a smack to the head and arrows from her eyes. 

but my grandfather hushes her too, takes my hand in his own- raises my shaky fingers to his forehead. and he says to me, "you will write stories on pencil and paper," and he smiles- "i've written them with time on my face." 

and i do not understand at first, but he places a shaky hand over mine. i try to read his forehead like braille, scrawled over his skin- 

my parents were poor, back in virginia- when we lived on the farm. but they were always happy-

i read his cheeks.  

vietnam made me a man too young, but atleast i had something to believe in- 

and i scan his chin. 

i will always love grandma, even if it doesn't seem like it. 

i reach up tiny hands and touch the corners of his eyes, read every smile, every burst of laughter, every harsh tear- 

as lines of poems

of joy, 

and they fly up to the top of my grandfather's temples

like shooting stars. 

+

years later, as i lay in the grass outside, i ask myself if caterpillars ever dream when they are inside of their chrysalis. perhaps they think of wind and wild stars, do they treat their old skin with disdain, do they shed it with relief? i don't think that caterpillars are ugly at all, and i like to imagine that maybe caterpillars live their lives thinking that they're hideous. the same way i feel about myself. and maybe the moment they realize that they've been beautiful the whole time- 

they grow wings. 

when i start to grow older, and my whole body begins to take form- a boy holds my face in his hands and pushes a strand of hair behind my hair, and he tells me i look beautiful. 

and i look at him and i search for something. there aren't any words hidden between his lashes, there  is no laughter caving into his lips. 

i look in the mirror, and what does my face say? 

and after awhile i decide that i want to fall in love with my own smile. i want to dream of my chest swelling with joy. i want the years to write poems over the edges of my eyes, drifting up to my temples- like shooting stars. 

i hope that when i am older a child will ask me why my face is so wrinkly, and i will know the answer.