I.I
Dear Jasmine Lotion girl,
I guess I used to believe in sandcastles that lived in the sky, back when paper thin bread made me feel like a good person, and that a metaphorical act could erase all the frowns I etched onto my parent's faces that week. Back when going to Church meant believing in someone who had control of my life, back when that someone was able to keep my aluminium tires on the road.
Call me a pessimist but my Saturday tears and clashing pots and pans containing my tantrums, don't fade into Monday Twilight's, and when I wake up my sheets are still stained with crying myself to sleep.
Love,
pigtails stained with tears girl
I.II
Dear lightening tears,
I don't know when I stopped needing to believe in something, maybe it was when my Grandpa died all alone, under listerine lights after everyone thought he was getting better, and I saw my Mom cry for the first time, lightening whispers sliding down her cheek and creating friction with her bones.
Love,
Friction- your result
I.III
Dear Almost brother,
God was feathers, and continuous waves, and a giant black eight ball that knew where my footprints would lead to each finite moment. He was in sunsets full of staying up late because its not dark yet, and twilight's burning green and gold as summer rain set. He was in the way skinned knees are full of ethanol tears until otter pops and ice cream can freeze out the tears and bring forth giggling as my almost brother got soaked by a hose sprinkler by my babysitter.
Love,
Scraped knees and Six year old perceptions
I.IV
Dear Grandpa,
Tennis balls concrete marked five by five square inch holes in the net, and the moment I walked into the door and heard my mom, I knew. Deep down where hummingbirds sometimes live beneath my spine and ribs, there was a stillness as if wings had ceased forever. I think that's when I stopped believing, because if seven year old eardrums can know instantaneously that sadness stems from death, why didn't God know, and why didn't he breathe for exhausted lungs so my mom doesn't have to become windowpanes washed away by the sky grief?
Love,
Faded Hummingbird wings
I.V
Dear era of zeros and donuts,
In third grade, we were learning how to estimate and doing complicated subtraction, but no matter times I counted on my fingertips and palms, I always came up with zero, empty cerulean clouds, and zero know at alls cross-legged on hurricanes just waiting to save humans. I smiled proud of myself, because I was always one of the fastest counters, and the numbers could run the longest in my head, doing what my feet never could, and have stamina.
Truth: After I stopped believing,Church was only because I had to and the old fashioned donut halves they always had set my tongue into sugar rush. The prism roof had crosshatched beams stretching from altar to stained glass and that became my New Years resolution, calculating how many planks there were.
Love,
Expert counting girl
I.VI
Dear Playground Lungs,
Swing sets used to show me how to construct feathers from pipe cleaners and tacky glue, feeding my obsession with finding the way to lavender skies, and ebony moons.
I always associated the Virgin Mary with mothers and watching over and stained glass songs that made me not empty, and sometimes crescendos of Hallelujah or Town of Bethlehem at the Christmas reenactment could push me towards the comets in almost measurements. Sometimes I was even half way there.
Seven year old elbows loved the way hymns could shatter collarbones and make me feel innocent again; truth that was the only reason I wanted to go, since I could hum and the wavering of off key notes held too long would vibrate in my ribs, and sometimes even fade away, unnoticed.
love,
tone deaf child
I.VII
Dear God,
I'm not sure what gravel tinted paradigms fit my curves and sideways hips, but I know there's beauty in motherhood. I was nine and a bolting horse who ran from anyone who could get close to her or whose fists were up in a split second against the evil species of boys. I hated Church but loved High Holy days of Judiasm and being a part of something bigger, and not understanding the exact words they said but fitting in all the same.
Truth: For awhile I believed in Mary because I thought that Mary was little when she had a baby so she would know what it's like to be afraid of older guys, since God had to have touched her to get Jesus. But I didn't tell anyone because I was afraid if I told my Mom what I believed in, Mary would see my baby brother and see the baby first, just like Mom.
So I stopped believing in her, except for in secret secret, since while Grandma was dying and breathing in downstairs rooms and old people smells, I believed I was raising myself. I spent my after school days with babysitters and I still believed in Vampires so after my parents pulled out of the driveways I'd crawl up in my sheets and read till it was time to pause my eyelids and curl up with lullabies.
I felt like a traitor to Mary because if I lay awake till BMW bumpers splurged gravel and they were five minutes late in coming home, I'd convince myself that if something happened and I became no one's daughter, it would all be okay. I"d whisper to myself and say prayers like they were a cherished fairytale I no longer believed in.
Love,
unbeliever
I.IX
Dear baby baby,
I tried to save cayenne feathers and broken wings once, but I touched it and its Mommy didn't want to come back for it anymore because she didn't love her baby more than being afraid of me. I breathed thunder sounds pulsing from my diaphragm as dark purple cranes sliced the grass blades trying to get to hopping baby fuzz, but I blinked and then I couldn't find him anymore, the little baby sparrow I loved.
I had eight years wanting to be saved behind me and always searchign through the loopholes in elastic constellations so I could crawl up to the moon, just like my dreams. I thought if he could get into the tree branches maybe beetles and living art would show him where to put his talons and which breezes to climb, so he could get to the sky too.
But maybe just maybe, and I hate myself saying it, but subconciously I blinked kinda on purpose, so if I looked away he'd never make it to the sky, so he wouldn't look up and up at airplanes passing by and ask whose in the adobe house in the clouds.
Maybe if I couldn't run fast enough to have wings to fly, I didn't want him to either and maybe I didn't want him make it all the way to exploding galaxies and thermal energy transfusion comets, that he'd prove me wrong, that bad things do happen even though there's been a god all along.
Truth: Its not impossible I was scared he'd fly to Jupiter, meet angels, and never come back for me, because all I could do was call out to him in tone deaf lyrics, and cry nightmares of being afraid to believe in someone up there.
Love,
Sepia eyelids unable to unblind herself
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