Three Poems
Jessica Simmons Bath You wonder if your hair has grown as long as the color-changing mermaid Barbie you got for your eighth birthday, crimped and frizzy until you dove her underwater to reveal glowing neon pink. You are weightless beneath amber waves, tinted from a mango bath bomb that will leave subtle shimmers in its wake on your skin. You long for a tub big enough to stretch your now adult body, but resign yourself to sink down, legs propped next to the faucet, toes sticking to the linoleum wall of the shower as each vertebrae flattens under the weight of liquid, finding a solid hollow on which to rest. You are a sunken ship as you shift on one side watching your hair dance spirals, the only part of yourself you can watch float. You long to lie on your stomach, stretch out like a star where your face can lay gently on the glass pillow of tepid water, an inverted Sleeping Beauty. Your mother used to scold you for such roaming turning over the water until suds spilled onto dry ground. Shriveled hair scrunched in her hands as they grazed your scalp, clothing invisible germs in white foam before sending them down the drain with each Dunk! You let your hair trail behind as you descend beneath the surface straddling the line between containment and safety. You realize the older you get, the more room you take up, while all the walls remain the same. The Queen of Wearing White When It's Raining I think the purest form of freedom is running barefoot through the mud in nothing but a white t-shirt. I’ve never been married but I did wear white for my first kiss. I was the only thing visible in the encircling night. I pretended to be light in white gauze for a college dance performance. The first time a guy asked me to dance I wore an oversized white shirt that kept falling off my shoulder. My prom dress was sleeveless a secondhand, off-white ball gown, fit for a queen. I have a white coat I’ve carried for years, a small chocolate stain hiding inside the lapel. People ask me how I keep it so clean, but I say it’s really not me. I’ve never worn a white hospital gown, but my friend L has twice; first when her appendix ran out its earthly clock, and second when they EEGed her brain. They covered her head in white bandages, a perfect crown. M left the world she could no longer remember in white, her heart flying her home in faith. I wear white every time it rains no longer a coincidence but my soul saying to the sky See me, soak me through-- I dare you. Thirty Seconds and It's Done The glow from the microwave signals I’m home leftovers draining their juice in a plastic pool blue plate. A creak in the door some shuffled feet a sigh between sobs he broke up with me warning signs before your frenzied embrace. We are warm, my life force melting into yours maybe some salt will rub off You fold to the floor and I follow suit while a brazen husky believes his tongue will fix what’s broken if he licks up all the memories raining from your face. We sit with our elbows touching and pray the sun will rise as the microwave sings that it’s done; we won’t let it grow cold. |
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About the Author: Jessica Simmons is an undergraduate dance major at Stephen F. Austin State University. She is from Denison, TX and is currently minoring in creative writing. Her work has previously been published in HUMID, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, and soon-to-be Polaris.