when pigs can fly

jacob used to sail kites, the frames         

made of forgotten sheets of paper

and old scraps of his mama’s fabric.        

his head craned to the sky above,

pudgy fingers doing little to block the

sunlight seeping through, almost

blinding. i remember the first time

he’d made it with his older brother,

rugged, with a pick or Marlboro

idling between his crooked teeth,

red bandana tucked into his waist-

band. our symbol of masculinity,

and the true symbol of a hick. he

was the one everyone called ‘johnny’

even though we knew it was really

‘henry,’ after his father who died

fighting the same cause his grandfather

had. history repeating itself. i remember

marie-anne, and the way the crushed

rock and the grass felt underneath us.

we’d always chase him for a chance to

feel. to run with the wind as the kite

soared above. little kids believing they

had the right. it makes me wonder

how the wind caught hold of us just like

we’d wanted, but instead pulling us not

to the clouds, but down, through the

loose earth and into the torn basement

belonging to beth’s father.

we knew he was a drunk, and that

was why her mother decided to walk

out long ago. the light is so dim in the

corner, barely emitting the orange it’s

supposed to. yet it’s enough for me to

see the vivid bruises and marks from the

needles they injected into themselves.

i don’t know what i’m doing here, watching

as they sink further into this euphoria,

bottomless like tree branches wrapping

their brittle bodies into them further.

they roll around in the soft-dirt corner

and come out slimy, convinced in the

lie that they’re better, just for the high

to introduce a new man that’ll throw

them out next week. they’re free from

lying to themselves, swearing just one

more, then i’ll stop, only to fall back

into that hogpen. But I can see them

flying in the corner of my mind, soaring

with the sun beating down their slimy

backs. swaddled in feathers and the

finest silk, gardenia never leaving their

skin. I see them flying in the corner.

school is kicking my creativity right now, and i genuinely feel like i’ve hit my peak. i hate when i read these great poems written by people my age, and i wonder how i could ever win anything or what worth my poems have. anyways, i wrote this after this photo i saw with scents, and the movie manic (2001). i thought it was really raw, but an overall okay movie. i felt the same way when i watched requiem for a dream.