gingham dresses patched with ladybugs
and hair tied with bows pulled out by snacktime
i learn to rollerblade as my father jokes about
tying a pillow to my bruised bottom so maybe
i won't cry every time i turn a corner and i grow up
across the street from the most perfect family i have ever seen
with twins and a golden retriever
we are not the family you see
on sitcoms or in car commercials
and we are not blonde
i will never see the twins again and
i am moving to a house with
water in the basement and a town with
more pride flags than american ones
and i feel at home beneath the
peeling awnings and too new
edifices erected stretching higher
than even the grandfather clock
and soon i am asking
to ride the bike i finally
learned how to operate
below the shade of the sycamore
i ruminate about falling on our roof
and i have friends, not that i know any
twins here and my mother is telling
me about block parties and picnics,
a world full of people who live
in houses that are not
twins//triplets//quadruplets of each other
is a world i know i will get used to but
it will take some time for me to
understand that we are not moving
again so if i drop a penny in the fountain
maybe it will come true before i
am laid to rest beneath the sycamore that has
not yet fallen on our roof
J.M. is a 16 year old author from the East Coast. She enjoys documentaries, her cat, and Taylor Swift. She writes about mental health and outer space, among other things.
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