I resent my classmates
for having nearly everlasting friends

but one shouldn’t blow out a candle
because he’s jealous of its light.

Hands shuffling the clothes on the rack
I find my costume, the bottom of the skirt
covered in dust

Switching costumes, the one I’m wearing goes on the rack
for the performance we’ll put on the next night.

Director pops his head in, covering his eyes
Showering us with compliments
(I like that part.)

I stare at the orchestra terms pasted on the wall
For our dressing room is the school’s
No, building’s
orchestra room.

Bariolage…
I like that word.

Had a dream about her

apartment

“We’re taking back what’s ours”

A bunch of people gather for a sporting event in the frigid snowy weather, nameless white ones

Mom and brother leave me
and a mountain of snow next to the door I must squeeze past
My umbrella I’m carrying lifts me off the ground slightly
My leg is badly grazed by the hard ice
somehow even putting a hole through my denim jeans.

I wake up and sob and weep for Jolly Ranchers in a dish, red couches with plastic coverings, onesies with foot coverings, gigantic coloring pages, the pink toy piano and the box tv in my room…

and how someone nameless probably now lives where that woman called home. Someone who’s worthless to me.

But I wonder if this is her way of making sure she stays in my mind

as if she’s manipulating me from heaven

And it’s okay, Grandma, the rent in my head’s in your munchkin’s name.