A Poem by Heather Truett

The Poet Looks Back and Falls Apart (Again)
 
I don’t mean she lets her brain win when all she’ll do is split
minutes, mouth seconds, swallow self-pity. She’s electric,
 
slides down and gets stuck holding her mother’s hand in 1984. Synapses
and neurons spin a silver baton and wear a crown, her toddler tiara proof
 
this world will always sparkle. I don’t mean the world turned
dull, but the day is dull through dark lenses, and she’s afraid of being
 
insignificant. She’s spitting out sapphires and lemonade. She’s sour
while her sweet cheeks turn pink. She stutters, shooting star signals
 
left and right before the light changes and the speeding truck is right
there. Kentucky’s Tiny near Miss, waving from her brother’s t-top in the Apple
 
Day parade. In 1994, she sings all the singles from En Vogue and Loretta Lynn.
I don’t mean to say her self makes sense. She’s senseless but sensible, busy
 
collecting crowns, no longer winning anything. False glitter gems against black
hair. Empty glitter days gem against a black hole. She’s skidded
 
to a halt somewhere. She’s always leaving home, landing in a new
here. Hear her demons sing on the wing of 2004. One pill, two pill, pink pill,
 
blue pill. Wash them down with a scream, and onto 2014. I don’t mean that she’s un
happy. She isn’t not stable, isn’t not okay. Another stumble to present day, she’s driving
 
the red car, stroking the orange cat, cooking the chicken before it goes bad, but
she’s also always going back, getting to the bottom of that time when she spotted
 
a jackrabbit in the cornfield. She couldn’t move her mouth to scream, garnet
heart pounding as she prayed and cried and watched her mother peel
 
and slice carrots through the storm door. Thirty years and she’s still frozen, queen
in a shattered diadem, her misfiring brain building a prison and turning the key.