The hotel room AC kicks on

It’s intermittent whir and hum

A reminder…

MY breathing will slow,

MY heart rate will temper.

Unlike the frog, too late aware

of the rising heat,

I’ve climbed out of the pot.

When I was a child

I knew everything

Why the grass was green 

and why the birds would sing

And as I got older 

I started to learn

That not everything we’re told 

Is necessarily so

A child who lives with laughter learns to be joyful

A child who lives with criticism learns to condemn

A child who is parented 

by someone who hasn’t yet learned 

is doomed to repeat these lessons over and over again

When I was a child 

I learned to be small

And whenever there was fighting, 

I had no voice at all

And as I grew up bigger I got loud,

And traveled far

Now that I am older

(And grayer and slow)

There’s not so many places 

I’d still like to go…

Some days I want to just sit here and watch the snow as it falls,

Or the rain, or the sun, 

Just stay within my own walls

I couldn’t wait to get bigger, 

I couldn’t wait to grow up

But now I want to be smaller, cause smaller’s big enough.

Someday barks in the distance

I call her, but she does not return

I cry myself to sleep

and wake up with salt stains

on my cheeks

I cannot return to the ocean

my skin is too raw from the surf 

I cannot go back to the place 

where you made me a-glow 

like the 7pm magical sunshine

and twist like the soft serve

that satisfied my tongue

I cannot turn my grief into beauty

All I can do is sit and remember 

summer nights drizzling like raspberries

down your chin