2011

jl morren

i was a playground superspy,

shifting agent of the woodchips and laminate,

fingers blood-drenched emerald

with the world's most washable markers.


we lived thin between blue lines—

dusted paperback, cobwebbed computers,

yellowed agate, taxidermy.

lights-off stories gave gaping hunger.

crayonsmell education gave us teeth.


our mothers knit us armor,

tangled defense from

crystal dampness, grass-stain,

metallic lace of frostbite—

yet they will never know our lives.


my boys spoke me to saturn;

my girls, my archers, ran tandem,

savage banners. each breath

hailed life, manna in the desert,

each visage a prism,

a thousand faces of

tattered rainbow.


so you say, "i will be this"

you say, "you will be that"

and i say, though i am grown, "yes" —

i still think i love you, all of you.

i still think whatever you want me to be,

whatever you want.

J.L. Morren is a writer and artist from western Michigan, currently studying at Calvin University and finishing her degree in Writing. Her poetry and prose has previously appeared in Orangepeel Literary Magazine, Londemere Lit, and Dialogue Creative Journal. Find her on Instagram and Twitter @jlmorren.

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