The Child Poet 

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Originally published by The Sad Girls Club Sept. 2020

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the child poet grows best in muddy shallows
under sunshine with storms on the horizon

planted as she was in the forgotten yesterdays
of a legacy garden overgrown with thistle and weeds

she spins tales of Saturday morning heartbreak
daddy’s axes laying waste to her dreams

innocence reaped in poppy fields, blood red
blooming on her thighs

fairytales become lamentations
lost love, future
her nectar dripping from thieving fingers

some two decades from now, her elegant wild vines like hope
will spread beyond the poisoned soils of her youth

July storms in turn become crisp apple Octobers
as the child poet, now grown, carries the pen of experience

with which to write herself in unscrambled thoughts
a sieve to make bounty of her sorrow-curdled milk

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