When I Climbed Trees

When I was a girl, the worst thing I could imagine was being alone
yet, here I am, sweeping through each day without benevolent counsel
and making it—
waking up to find these people are my people, unaided
and I haven’t an ear to bend when I am unsure or afraid.
I climbed that palm as a girl, at the end of our drive and watched—
branches frail beneath my muddled frame, overlooking
our little gray house, jalousie windows seeping secrets;
mother asleep inside, in broad daylight
because mothers do this, I think—
sleep away the day because the night whispers villainous things
to them. Maybe she spent all night watching my cot, but I knew
that wasn’t true because the night whispered to me, too—
I saw stars in the night that flashed signals at me
a girl, aghast at the thought of being alone without realizing
she was very alone already.
When children speak to me, I must silence my mind and listen
in a way that no one did for me—
so they don’t go on believing that the worst thing is singularity
when the worst thing is that child’s mind unmindfully in a tree.

Photo Credit: iainmerchant Flickr via Compfight cc

Jesse Albatrosov

Jesse is an emerging poet living and writing in the Central Florida area, with her husband and five children. She moonlights as a seamstress for her Etsy shop and is currently working toward her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English with a concentration on Poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in THAT Literary Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Press 53's Prime Number Magazine, Streetlight Magazine and others. You can find her online at www.jessealbatrosov.com or on social media.

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Jesse is an emerging poet living and writing in the Central Florida area, with her husband and five children. She moonlights as a seamstress for her Etsy shop and is currently working toward her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing and English with a concentration on Poetry. Her work is published or forthcoming in THAT Literary Review, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Mothers Always Write, Press 53's Prime Number Magazine, Streetlight Magazine and others. You can find her online at www.jessealbatrosov.com or on social media.

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