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.