Papercuts

I sat on my tree trunk stool

My heartbeat with the black vessels of tree limbs

Stretching fingers across a cornflower blue sky

Falling away to amber

The only sound was my pen scratching

The farthest I could see was the only red light in town, toy like

I thought I was so high

I knew dinner waited for me but Mama, I was so full

My face flushed with contentedness

I had looked up from that journal with a thousand revelations

My fourteen year circle yet to come full

I wrote in allegory, fantastic flight out of a hole of a town

Nevermind yesterday’s crying yelps

The dog’s legs dangling off the porch as it was choked by its neck

Nevermind I wasn’t strong enough to hold that metal

And not a good eye enough to weld it myself

I wrote.

Nevermind, I couldn’t run a good bead anyway

And wasn’t that good of a shot

I wrote.

No, I wouldn’t have been better as a boy

Now I returned to that same sky, thirty five

Pondering that trailer

That I thought I’d be looking down on my whole life

But now I’m a woman

Still getting papercuts