16-years-old.

Sitting on the warn wooden kitchen floor
Sorting through a crate of my deceased mothers
belongings

Recollecting 16-year-old cards, poems,
and photographs
from her last years
​​​​​​​
A single polaroid catching my attention
as the one side was bent backwards like
it was meant not to have
ever seen the days light or
any emotional thoughts ever again

Mom in her corduroy overalls
Hair frantic from the wind that we had just encountered on the John Boat
sunglasses disguising her blackened eyes

Our smiles hiding the pain we were feeling from that mornings lambasting.

Holding our morning catches
three, 7lb Rainbow Trouts
silently sharing thoughts of regret from not pushing him over to be left
        drowning
              sinking into the soiled lake bed
that catches his 6'4 235 lb. body

Slowly contorting the image
to its original form
revealing the dark bearded dyslexic man
with his big grimy hands
that felt like sand paper
every time he wrapped them around us

Just as I had remembered
analyzing how we all were back then
       scared
         alone
          with nowhere to go.

Slowly drifting my way back to
realization as I was still on the kitchen floor
hands gripping the sides of the polaroid as if it were his neck

Hastily bending the image back over
Almost as if I we're hiding
what use to happen
or maybe just impelling that
hurt back inside of me

……Footsteps; coming down the stairs.

Quickly to flash a smile
The same one that resembled
that single 16-year-old polaroid.
​​​​​​​- Kayla Watson