I am about the age of trees. When I scream,
my breath smells like my mother’s when she drank herself to sleep
and so I spent the night in a neighbor’s garage because
his cat just had kittens, one was like
a pumpkin in color whilst I had the roundness on my jaws.

I showed him the green canopies I
would jump from, and he got caught: the man I called dad
had to work his way through the jungle (-gym)
or the McDonald’s play area
to fly us by our potbellies like Superman in the cerulean above.

I never thought what it meant,
that I was already sleeping in an old man’s covers at six and seven
but now I feel those nights like bruised elbows.
Now I am the same afraid girl trying to find wombs in men
the age of trees, yet I still climb them just to ask to be carried down.