"avril" poems - Hello Poetry

the magnolia was a bit of a ******* (as far as trees can be ******** and like very many other things— like japanese candy from the Fugi Mart in Greenwich (across from the McDonald’s and next to the music shop where I got my viola) and like pokemon cards and nintendo gaming systems and like Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” on a pink CD in a Hello Kitty radio —that ******* of a magnolia was a distinctive taste of the years I spent growing up in my house at the end of Wyndover Lane. the ******* thing was almost perpetually in bloom. it barged into both spring and autumn (it didn’t give a **** about timing) those pink and white spongy petals padding the ground and at first you think it’s ******* beautiful sitting in the crook of the trunk where it split into two large separate branches tilting your chin back to catch a glimpse of blue between fat blossoms then the petals start rotting water-retentive little ******* and you can’t sweep ‘em away because they stick to the patio brown clumps slipping under rubber soles my dad lets loose a string of curses and the magnolia shakes with laughter I tried pressing the petals in a notebook once while I was in that naturalist phase it seems all little girls go through when you make fairy houses out of bark in the backyard and put flowers between the pages of books because it feels oh-so-much-more significant than picking a pretty thing and showing it to mom but the magnolia seeped through my spiral ring and when I opened it up a month later they were dry tan papery things not at all velveteen and rosy and there were garish pink bloodstains all through the ten pages on either side magnolias don’t preserve well except, honestly they do don’t they then of course there’s that childhood tragedy that everyone has when your dog got hit by some soccer mom’s suburban or your teddy bear was lost in an airport or maybe you just liked to cry because some things were just really worth the tears at the time but when I came home and found out they cut down my ******* ******* of a magnolia I bawled there wasn’t even a stump.

0

May 2, 2013

May 2, 2013 at 4:48 PM UTC

liz-mclaughlin

Magnolia

the magnolia was a bit of a ******* (as far as trees can be ******** and like very many other things— like japanese candy from the Fugi Mart in Greenwich (across from the McDonald’s and next to the music shop where I got my viola) and like pokemon cards and nintendo gaming systems and like Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” on a pink CD in a Hello Kitty radio —that ******* of a magnolia was a distinctive taste of the years I spent growing up in my house at the end of Wyndover Lane. the ******* thing was almost perpetually in bloom. it barged into both spring and autumn (it didn’t give a **** about timing) those pink and white spongy petals padding the ground and at first you think it’s ******* beautiful sitting in the crook of the trunk where it split into two large separate branches tilting your chin back to catch a glimpse of blue between fat blossoms then the petals start rotting water-retentive little ******* and you can’t sweep ‘em away because they stick to the patio brown clumps slipping under rubber soles my dad lets loose a string of curses and the magnolia shakes with laughter I tried pressing the petals in a notebook once while I was in that naturalist phase it seems all little girls go through when you make fairy houses out of bark in the backyard and put flowers between the pages of books because it feels oh-so-much-more significant than picking a pretty thing and showing it to mom but the magnolia seeped through my spiral ring and when I opened it up a month later they were dry tan papery things not at all velveteen and rosy and there were garish pink bloodstains all through the ten pages on either side magnolias don’t preserve well except, honestly they do don’t they then of course there’s that childhood tragedy that everyone has when your dog got hit by some soccer mom’s suburban or your teddy bear was lost in an airport or maybe you just liked to cry because some things were just really worth the tears at the time but when I came home and found out they cut down my ******* ******* of a magnolia I bawled there wasn’t even a stump.