I believe in peanut butter-Mira Rosenkotz
When I was 8 I thought that I was Superman.
Gravity agreed to disagree
We were in constant conversation
But neither one of us
Wanted to admit that we were wrong
That was the first time
I stood my ground
Against a natural phenomenon
Next I would try
A person.
I knew that someday
Probably at an interview for
A minimum wage job
I would be asked what my weaknesses are
And I would need a better answer than
Kryptonite
My cape is still in the plastic bin upstairs
In the crawl space
That was once a deep dark dungeon.
When I have a mortgage
And a daughter one day
Maybe she’ll bring my typewriter in to
Show off at
Show and tell
And nobody will ask her if she needs help carrying it
They know she’s got it
Because they remember how last week
When her little brother danced with bees
How she picked him up with one arm and
Carried him to safety.
When I was 9 ¾
I realized I wasn’t going to be a wizard
What gave it away was that
The postman
Wasn’t an owl.
In fact his name was Kirk and his daughter was my
Enemy
We shared the lead in a play once
My script went missing.
When I weighed the same amount as our black lab
- I didn’t like talking to the cashier at the store
- I was in the first grade
- I thought tomatoes were a vegetable
In middle school a lot of kids that I
KNEW
Didn’t play baseball
Talked about who got to second
Mavis Beacon told me I was doing a good job
Every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:30
It was the most scheduled praise
I had ever received.
When my sister’s hands were still smaller than mine
She liked to nod
While on the phone
As if when my grandma called
She could see her head moving up and down
When my sister’s hands are worn and tired
And all she can do on the phone
Is nod
I will tell her that it is okay
And that I know sometimes the only thing
She can muster
Even while on the phone
Is a nod.
Because my sister and I,
We come from the same place.
We come from a club house
That we made out of wood
From my father’s bin labeled
SCRAP
We come from me taking the blame for using the hammer
And nails
Even when our mom told us not to
Go into the shop
Until our dad got home.
When I wore cargo pants to school every day
(When I needed the pockets to store things)
I had lived for a decade.
Mr. Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right
Sat on my left shoulder
He was wearing a red blazer
And a paper bag over his head with
Every mom’s face painted on it.
Mrs. An Eye For An Eye
Sat on my right shoulder
She was wearing all white
As if it was Yom Kippur
Even though it wasn’t.
Ear plugs were out of my price range
So I listened to them bicker
All day long
What I learned was
Nobody likes to admit that they are wrong
And more often than not
Most people are.
Self care
Wasn’t a phrase that I knew
Until the fourth girl I ever loved
Would ask me how many miles
I felt like running
As we tied our shoes
She knew that I don’t like chocolate chips
In my pancakes
Even though she does.
Goats believe in alfalfa
The way that some people believe in God
I know this because every morning
They tell me
When I feed them a flake and a half
They pray twice a day
I believe in
The way that they smell
And that it will always smell like
Home
To me.
I believe in peanut butter
And packing a sack lunch
And taking breaks every now and then
From real life
And that it’s okay to
Cry
In public
If you have to
There are some things in life
That we can’t control
Like
Bad hair days and
Thunderstorms.
