Teenage

I am Hephaestus, son of Zeus
Who was flung onto the Island of Lemons by Zeus

I am Hephaestus, gentle and skilled
Who is very fond of his mother

I am Hephaestus, big and strong
Who built two mechanical robots with kids of their own

I am Hephaestus, husband of Aphrodite
For whom I sit and fashion clothes

I am Hephaestus, a brave god
Who stepped between my arguing parents

I am Hephaestus, hard working and peace loving
Who is the god of smiths and fire

I’m from a cup of lukewarm tea at midnight
Forgetting it will keep me up

I am from cameras and pictures
That captured my every move
and otherwise buried memories

I am from a too shaky bed
Remembering to wake me up from every single nightmare

I am from torrential downpours
Creating muddy puddles
And giving me the urge to stomp around outside in the fresh air

I am from frequent family movie nights
Warning me to never watch these horrendous movies again

I am from picture books to novels
That craft my brain and how I think

I am from late night adventures to random places with special people
Making me feel like I could be in a movie because it feels so perfect

I am from idiotic yet wonderful TV shows
Teaching me more important lessons than school can

I’m from all the odd quirks life brings along
And I wouldn’t have it any other way

My family is very great ,
Just like delicious food on a plate
If I’m late
That’s all just because I’m only 8

He has made this world with such love and care
And like a father gifted us with life
And imparted to us our precious air
Our lives balanced on the edge of a knife

So graciously he left us to our ways
To learn and gain experience from sins
And since then we have lived in a blood red haze
In a bloody gamble to see who wins

We have split our families out of spite
Ruthlessly chained our people to the ground
We have bathed in blood to prove our might
And still we long to hear the gunshot sound

God has made this world with such love and care
But I can’t help wonder, is he there?

I think about you all the time,
The way your bleepers always chime

Your vibrating feels me up,
And your calls and messages never stop

You sing sweetly when someone calls,
It’s brilliantly beautiful, I want to applaud

You are as light as a feather, but carry many things,
I don’t know what other wonders you will bring

But you become bitter when you die on me,
But when I recharge you it fills me with glee

Emails, texts, calls galore,
With you around life is never a bore

You are a ray of sunshine, Mobile Phone,
With you I will never be alone!

I looked out my window once.
I saw a reflection.
I saw a dragon once
She was mighty
Oh you should have seen her, she was beautiful
I don’t mean the type of beautiful that would draw the average interest
but the beauty that defies standards

She had a deep red scales and a flame wrapped heart
her size robust and unladylike
oh she was potent
she could stare and kill
this dragon,
not my dragon
no-one’s dragon
her own dragon
I watched as she,
She danced through forests
set ablaze hearts
flew into Arcadian pastures and still returned
each night to tell me where she’d gone
I do remember she left for a while,
before going she’d told me there were men who wanted her skin
I was young I thought, ‘Alright, fly free.’
but I didn’t know
I couldn’t imagine
that one day these men
would seize her
slice off her wings
and cage her fiery mouth
clip her tail and say, ‘Stay, sit still’
I couldn’t figure how they’d caught her
why they caught her
then I realized they’d never seen her dance
or speak her mind with flames of joy or love or hate
or soar like Daedalus
but now just now I have seen her crash like Icarus
and it pains me to see the once brilliant, extraordinary dragon be captured
and enclosed
I see now the men take her scales off one by one and i can’t help but shed a tear
I see
I see
I see
her freshly exposed skin now feels what humans call blood

This dragon has told me before she has never been wounded
she has not known bleeding till now and i ache
I wished so badly that this one dragon
this one living thing need not know of hurt
fly free and be left lone
but greedy men with sticky hands with beauty gawking eyes and gaping mouths
need
need
need more
more
more
posses ideals that say content does not come to men and to leave unscathed is synonymous with insultry
to leave something beautiful, pure is to deeply offend
something beautiful has not been caressed with the loving grip of cages and blood
has not seen how we are better for your degradation
does not know of utilitarianism
because your scales may be sold
because this is a system of mercantilism
and we men are artisans
we are in a market of merchants
to have pockets of coins
and I have shelves of bread
and my father said he hunts
I have not seen any livestock
now I wonder
where my father keeps his catch.

My worries are overcoming me.
All the stress piled upon me.
They’re messing with my mind not letting me be.

My nerves are tensed.
I’m already depressed.
I can barely get some rest.

All the nervousness taking over my mind.
Relaxation is what I can’t find.
Tensed and anxious is my state of mind.
Relief is what I can’t find.

My heart beat getting faster and faster.
My breathing gets heavier and harder.
My temples hurting and aching.
My stomach feeling sick and hurting.

All my thoughts overcoming me.
All my problems rush to mind.
All my worries not letting me be.
All my emotions intertwined.

I start to panic.

What do I do?
Where do I go to?
Who do I go to?

My sight gets blurry.
My mind all in a hurry.
I start to go blind.
It’s like nothing of ever kind.
Control my body can’t find.
I can’t get to a peaceful state of mind.

My mind goes blank.
I knock and pass out.

Dad said there were bats in the attic.
We dug a hole to China at the top of the hill.
But if we had dug a hole through the center of the Earth,
we’d have popped up through the Pacific Ocean.
Grandma’s bed was always made
with a dusty pink and yellow Afghan
that smelled like Easter Sunday
and was faded where the sun shone through
the ice-crystalline window.
Beneath the bed were cans of green beans
and jars labeled “Peaches – 2000” in a loopy scrawl of permanent marker on the lid.
There were yellow sparkles in the linoleum bathroom floor and
The bathroom counter was always covered in mud and sugary slush,
the heating ducts surrounded by wet boots and
tiny, shivering bodies.
If you looked up on a sunny January day, you
would see the sun pass through the aspens and ponderosas
like a New Mexican Narnia.

My mom had just found me from my
hiding place in the synthetic ivy-covered cabinet
when Grandma presented a lavender corduroy jumper
with a daisy embroidered on the bottom left-hand corner.
The buttons the same metallic temperature
As my great-grandmother’s alabaster hands
The color the same as the book of fairytales
I was given on my eighth birthday.
The one with the story about a girl who
refused to turn into seafoam

She had been gone for two months
And already I found myself
Leaving my bedroom at night
To stare at her portrait on the
Living room wall with a flashlight
What did she look like?
What was the color of her eyes?
The eyes I had so foolishly neglected.
When she visited for Christmases
And Thanksgivings, her arms were
Full of textbooks and not of me.

“You have rootbeer eyes.”
She laughed and the caramel
Swirled with fire.
She turned back to stirring.
“…or cockroach eyes.”
She threw out the brown smoking confection
And as she itched her eyes, her
Watering, labrador eyes,
I smelled sweet, burning plastic.
The smoke rises higher.

I remember mama all nice and sweet
I remember mama all round and petite
I remember mama making noise in her room
I remember mama beating me ’til I bruise
I remember mama loving and caring for me
I remember mama hating and neglecting me
I remember mama laughing out loud
I remember mama crying so sad
I remember mama loving herself
I remember mama hating her health
I remember mama saying her last goodbyes
because she had neglected her only dear child