Start small

the changes we swore to in

resplendent troths, without vision because

I burst forth from childhood

flat chested frail wristed pinions

not yet grown: all down

and yielding. So told do not fly

compress

We look at a distant light 

With hope for self discovery 

fear of catastrophe, 

and self-inflicted wounds 

We dig through the mountain

in order to escape 

Eclipsing, 

suffocating our souls

When I rewind the tangled film of that year to replay again,

the transcript hitches, a tainted roll of chromatography paper,

taken out from the closet a few too many times;

when I carefully crop it to the segment in question,

9:45.  My heart begins to race. I unconsciously cross my legs on top of one another with my foot anxiously bouncing up and down, my leggings making a soft swishing sound from the friction of them rubbing together. My teacher drones on and on and on about poetry. Normally, I’d be interested.