Handprints and FingerPrints

I never stopped needing you -
you just stopped caring about me
Pretending I'm full of dramatics,
so you can cop out of picking up the phone,
and hearing the tears in my voice.1

So many marks criminalizing my dusty soul as I walk through throbbing clumps of strollers and Cinderella dreams complete with glittery tiaras and cerulean lace. I wish my throat worked- I wish I could tell them to hold on to their dreams, to savor them like rainbow lollipops because the bubbles of sweetness fade as you grow hold and learn how to hold pain. 2

I'd make them promise,
to always walk around as if,
there is a tiara on their head-
to never let anyone, boy or girl
tell them different. 3

II. A shady word- preceding a slippery slope of numbing and over4

A wannabe smile aligns on my face- of pink cotton candy smiles, of posing for pictures that my head unconsciously characterizes as 'before' - even as I pretend I'm not falling apart. 5

A before to an after, I'm terrified of-
an after that I refuse to believe
I'd ever climb down the steps too-
an after I don't want to be anywhere close
to reality- not three tree branches away
nor seven years of broken pain away. 6

III. 7

Dreams as real as the fairytales that conceived them8

Eyes extinguished in a nameless pain, my irises spark as an illuminated pink brick castle stands before me. A castle built on five-year-old hopes and the secret little girl desire to be a princess. Walking through the castle, my hand trails the wall- my chipped neon nails tracing the prints made by hundreds before me. The green dressed mermaids sleepily tag the walls from frozen lemonade strollers.9

Wandering around the carousel pivoting away from Mickey Mouse hat mothers standing in line, so their babies can ride the painted horses. 10

Back when it was worth it to wait
For long moments dripping with sweat-
when I was five and didn't know,
that dreams could shatter,
and that waiting just fades into the past.11

IIII. 12

I trust you not tell- just not to ever be there13

I want to call you at 3 Am- and for you to actually pick up and listen. Because you know you owe me for the millions of voice mails you deleted with a deaf click. And for the texts that screamed of spiraling and drowning on land and suffocating on air, and needing to anchor me. 14

I want you to make me promise
"Take me with you, when you run- if you do,"
so you never have to let go.
More than that I want you to care enough. 15

IIII. 16

When Acetamine tablets containing the genetics of numbing- fade from my eyes17

In six months- when you wonder what happened, what caused the bridges to smolder- I'll tell you. 18

"You weren't there. I needed you so bad but you never cared. A part of me died.19

You lost my trust. I can't believe your promises anymore. You can't just be my friend when its easy- my best friend when you know I'd kill for you, and I do everything to support you. You need to see that- open your eyes to how much I love you- notice and answer my calls for help. You could have saved me from myself- but you didn't, so I was lost staring out the window towards bearing my burdens with no one to understand, holding my arms across my chest- keeping my lungs, and ribs from falling out. 20

While the fingerprints of hope
created marks of forever on dusty freckles
~ half promises of calling were gifted-
but shockingly, you never do.21

V. 22

Now~ But I believe[d] in a lot of things, like you, and dreams staying whole.23

Heart skipping a beat at the Dumbo ride- I loved him as a little girl- he was adorable, everyone said so. And he proved to everyone he wouldn't fail. I always thought I could relate- sometimes four your old dreams even translating to wanting to be an elephant with a trunk and a feather on my nose. He and I were both shy and clumsy- I believed in him. 24

But I never triumphed like he did, no I just failed into winter windowpanes sketching meaningless words in the frost, into pounding my feet to the beat of a song giving me the final ounces to run a mile in a astro turf night. 25

Imprinted on me- my hand holds a black pole
the outline of fifteen year old hands covering
prints of five and four and three finger spirals.26


VI. 27

Peeling memories, like grapes28

This place, while full of other broken worlds, has no memories of you, safe.29

Believable to me and today's six year olds because on the escalator of childhood30

- we were too young to know t hat cotton candy leads to first kisses, which becomes stomachache and heartbreak. We weren't grown up enough but maybe then, we were wise. Enough to believe in carousel dreams and dip and dot hopes- another world that opened the door. 31

VII. 32

Flying elephants and fairies33

We believed in fairy godmothers the way I once believed in my best friend. They both watch out for you- give you fabulous clothes- one a Belle dress and another those short shorts your mom doesn't want you wearing. 34

Both are always supposed to be there- some things chase us from childhood- becoming the fingerprints and handprints that we stick with and grow into , later.35

Fairy Godmothers come
when you say magic words
and wave the silver star wand.
All you had to do was press a
a button when my phone
selected your number -accept.36

VII. 37

Theme song of ignoring-broken record of not being there38

Your IMs joked when I told you I was crying most of the time- last year you were there in the peak of our friendship, to see me hide my tears even from you, so I wouldn't be vulnerable. 39

Beyond the mileage my heart could travel-
My hurt devouring the air
like hot lava destroys yellow dotted lines
dividing concrete- this is what I want you to hear. 40

VIII41

I am a motif- the foreshadow of six years from today-42

There are so many mothers holding the hands of their little princesses and princes wearing smiles wider than the intake of dreams. I want to warn them- tell them not- to never let go of their babies, but that its going to hurt like a thousand needles when their princess becomes someone she never believed existed.43

They break the porcelain doll model and unnamed pain will stamp with the handprints of growing up. Careful won't be good enough. 44

Their babies might grow up
to be like me- shattered and alone.
Not a fallen angel at all,
just fallen. 45

IX46

Sorry won't ever be enough- neither will love- they will still run47

And their fairy godmothers will be replaced with promises of forever, and twinned spirits who will maybe not be there to stop their babies from running. 48

I'd say I'm sorry-
and maybe in a dream
of when their handprints matched,
will they remember me. 49

x.50

Then I'll think of you, because hun, you taught that. And how some prints on your soul never fade- like the ones you made on me because if their dusty memoirs weren't still clinging-51

Maybe I'd have stopped calling you...52

And maybe promises would mean something to me, and I'd still believe in dreams, 53

in a million and one phone calls of reading between the lines- into forever. 54