The faces of my friends have been blotted out
Like photos in a housefire
burned through
angry-black-bubbled out of existence
You’re permanently obscured.
Where’s the girl I walked to classes with, bad bangs growing out, backpack on your back?
Is that still you in there?
Underneath the years
the different names:
strangers calling you mom and honey,
Mrs. so-and-so
underneath the baby growing inside of you
Have you changed?
Or is it just my unwillingness to see you without that backpack that makes you seem different to me?
And when I go that way –
will I disappear under the things I’m called and the people I create?
(will I be able to see myself in there?)
Like photos in a housefire
burned through
angry-black-bubbled out of existence
You’re permanently obscured.
Where’s the girl I walked to classes with, bad bangs growing out, backpack on your back?
Is that still you in there?
Underneath the years
the different names:
strangers calling you mom and honey,
Mrs. so-and-so
underneath the baby growing inside of you
Have you changed?
Or is it just my unwillingness to see you without that backpack that makes you seem different to me?
And when I go that way –
will I disappear under the things I’m called and the people I create?
(will I be able to see myself in there?)
3 comments:
Ah, how I love this. Women are already so defined by their labels and relationships to others - maybe it's saving a small part of them that you remember them learning and on their own, backpacks and all.
I love your bad poetry. More please!
I see me still. I hope you do, too.
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