​ladybug interlude

Sharp hardness gives way and it's all cardboard
All bubble-wrapped and nestled in last week’s newspaper
I see myself dancing in the kitchen and I watch quietly over my own shoulder
The song starts to sound like the gentle hum of the refrigerator
It's got this muted loudness to it
Days like these, memories are closer to the present
That thin layer between now and then just barely holds solid
It's spider silk
It’s too small to see but too strong to break through
I'm all tangled up

I see the old house
The chicken coop
The tall zinnias we grew in the garden beds
I see the portable CD player I left in the rain
My cinderblock fairy houses
Veca the door
I bring up the ladybug-shaped projector that put stars on my ceiling
And my mom asks how I can remember all that stuff
I think I'm stuck on the wrong side of things
I think my head's in that room on the bottom bunk
Wrapping blankets around my bed frame to protect myself from lightning storms
I think I'm still lifting up the heavy rocks while May the chicken pecks bugs out from under them with her beak
Those memories hold true in whatever now is