"backstreet" poems - Hello Poetry

I’m thinking of the faded checkered pattern that has been smoothed away by time on the dark cloth seats of a Nissan Pathfinder driving down Ryan Road on a hot day in June. My mother, in the front seat, singing along to a Spice Girls cassette. I’m thinking: red, plastic, crab-shaped sandbox and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. I’m thinking: light princess pink, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue. I’m thinking of a framed cheetah cross stitch, hanging on the wall of what used to be our bedroom at my grandparent’s house. I’m thinking: Barbie doll houses and Hot Wheels and a cul-de-sac at the end of the street. The sweet smell of cigar smoke. The ice cold splash of the garden hose. The pop of a bubble. The sting of soap in the eye. Dreams by The Cranberries. As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys. A HelloKitty boombox slowly spitting out vapor when the deck builders hit a power line while digging. The deer in the backyard looking for corn. The faded wood of a playset that was never really played on. My father: sitting alone on a splintered bench by the firepit at the edge of the woods, empty beer cans at his feet, chain smoking cigarettes, and humming along to a song that is stuck—forever stuck—on the tip of my tongue. I do not know if this happened. I cannot ask him. (I’m not sure if I would want to ask him.) But I can make an educated inference that that line of fiction is really nonfiction. A memory that feels like a phantom limb. Sounds like the sharp crinkle of static. Covered in a gossamer, dreamlike haze. There is a distinct otherness to this memory, to who I think I was before the trauma. We are two different people. A yin and a yang. A day and a night. The hermit crab is soft beneath its hard shell. The asbestos is not apparent within the insulation. You cannot see the lead in the paint. The mold inside the fruit.

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May 5, 2021

May 5, 2021 at 2:46 AM UTC

taylor-st-onge

Imagine This Poem as a 4x6 Walgreens Photo Print From a 2002 FujiFilm Disposable Camera

I’m thinking of the faded checkered pattern that has been smoothed away by time on the dark cloth seats of a Nissan Pathfinder driving down Ryan Road on a hot day in June. My mother, in the front seat, singing along to a Spice Girls cassette. I’m thinking: red, plastic, crab-shaped sandbox and McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. I’m thinking: light princess pink, seafoam green, and robin’s egg blue. I’m thinking of a framed cheetah cross stitch, hanging on the wall of what used to be our bedroom at my grandparent’s house. I’m thinking: Barbie doll houses and Hot Wheels and a cul-de-sac at the end of the street. The sweet smell of cigar smoke. The ice cold splash of the garden hose. The pop of a bubble. The sting of soap in the eye. Dreams by The Cranberries. As Long as You Love Me by The Backstreet Boys. A HelloKitty boombox slowly spitting out vapor when the deck builders hit a power line while digging. The deer in the backyard looking for corn. The faded wood of a playset that was never really played on. My father: sitting alone on a splintered bench by the firepit at the edge of the woods, empty beer cans at his feet, chain smoking cigarettes, and humming along to a song that is stuck—forever stuck—on the tip of my tongue. I do not know if this happened. I cannot ask him. (I’m not sure if I would want to ask him.) But I can make an educated inference that that line of fiction is really nonfiction. A memory that feels like a phantom limb. Sounds like the sharp crinkle of static. Covered in a gossamer, dreamlike haze. There is a distinct otherness to this memory, to who I think I was before the trauma. We are two different people. A yin and a yang. A day and a night. The hermit crab is soft beneath its hard shell. The asbestos is not apparent within the insulation. You cannot see the lead in the paint. The mold inside the fruit.