Butterfly Kisses

He asks me How I slept

I say fine.

He asks me if I am ready for the day

I say yes.

He asks me how my breakfast was

I say good.

He walks away in his gray sweatshirt

that I bought him for Christmas.

He comes home from work

Asks me how my day was

I say good

He asks me what happened at school

I say nothing

He asks me how work was

I say okay

He goes to do his sudoku

and I go upstairs.

I remember the father daughter dance

I'd wear my best dress,

my dad his best suit

we never left the dance floor.

I remember our special kiss

before I went to bed.

I remember asking him to leave pictures

underneath my pillow.

I remember playing outside with him

and making him lift me by the elbows.

my elbows are scraped now

the dress I wore is torn

my lips are chapped and dried

and the pictures are long time gone

and for now the dance floor is empty

but someday we will be back

I in my dress

him in is suit

no matter how long we sit it out

he will always be my dad.

Under Construction

The bump at the end of my road is gone.

Instead fresh soft tar stripes the worn road.

The new neighbors, with their freshly painted shutters,

rejoiced – no more scraping cars or spilled coffee.

None of them realized their new home with blue shutters

would always be “Mr. Stanley's house,"

the man who never refused to buy a box of cookies

even though we all knew he didn't like sweets.

But these neighbors, unpacking vans of throw pillows,

as I graduated from fourth, then sixth, then ninth grade,

didn't know that the same bump which jostled their mugs

and disrupted their conference calls on their daily commute,

was the glorious finish of bike races

the boundary line of exploration

the distance of hyperbolic braggarts:

I can make the shot all the way from there!

They couldn't know how that bump

made me bang my head off the window

waking me after too long car rides

and letting me know I'd soon be home.

They didn't understand how it

scraped my friend's green bug

every time she picked me up for

late night movies, bonfires, or ice-cream runs.

As the families lobbied the town

to fix that god-awful bump in the road,

crying “it's been there for years!”

No one knew “forever” would be more accurate.

To them, it was just a nuisance, a bother, an imperfection.

But that bump was my childhood.

Underneath

Underneath her white tee shirt is her skin

Underneath her pale skin is her beating heart

Underneath her heart there is a young girl clenching her blankey as she falls asleep

Underneath the blanket is torn thread, escaping fluff, and memories holding the pieces together.

Underneath her Redsox baseball cap is her long straight bangs hiding her warm brown eyes

Underneath her eyes is her mind clinging to all the little things from the past day, the rain, the laughs, the stumble down the last step.

Underneath her clumsiness is the fierceness of a dare devil, attacking the challenges of the net, the glove and the world.

Underneath her clumsiness is a smile.

By: Terri Bastarache :)

I'll Always Be Molly Hatchet To You.

There was a birthday,

when I turned twelve

that you were there for.

You came around in your Harley shirt

and pick-up truck,

ducking through my doorway

to call me Molly Hatchet

and make me remember

why you're my favorite.

You didn't swoon over my brother,

but carried in a beat-up old guitar case

and played something just for me.

Then you told me it was mine,

that favorite old guitar.

You remembered as I grew older

and became a high school student,

you wished you could be there

for my musical performance.

You called me on my birthday,

sent a card,

sent an email,

reminding me to keep strumming

that favorite old guitar.

You filled me with a love for music

stronger than any illness.

A love that will prevail

even when you have no voice to sing,

no energy to perform.

You told me once

during a call,

or in a card,

or in an email,

to stay on track

so I don't end up like you.

If only you knew,

that's exactly who I want to be,

always playing that favorite old guitar.

Bus Number Eight

Bus number eight pulls into

the Skillin School parking lot

with Shorty behind the wheel and

he smiles his bad teeth smile and

I can see the sweat gathering on

his shiny bald head but then

the big girl pushes me out of the way

with her thick chubby arms

and takes her place near the front of the bus but then I

notice Ben is sitting near the front and I go

to sit next to him because he's my best friend

but the big girl says

you

are

a

boy

lover

so I sit next to her instead and then

the big boys strut to the back because

they are ten and I am only seven and

they kick my bag when they walk by

and laugh at me until

I make the mistake of opening my bag and the big girl

sees something shiny so she wants it but

I don't want her to want it but she's

huge so I let her take it and

my eyes are filling with tears so I look at Ben and

he yells at the big girl and calls me over to sit

next to him but

then all the boys sitting with boys and

all the girls sitting with girls start giggling

and saying

you

are

a

boy

lover

but this time I don't care because he keeps me

safe

and

I

am

a

boy

lover.

Pondering Too Much Pondering

To think, or to act? That is the question.

Whether tis nobler to ponder an idea and let time takes its course, or to simply to act upon it?

To think first and act later or let impulse take over?

What time is wasted when we think?

What turmoil we cause when we act before thinking?

To think is not an action. Or is it, in itself, an action of inaction?

As time itself slips by with no action, or instead action of inaction.

Time goes by as we sit and think of what we would have done and what could have done, or even should have done.

Or think of what we did which was really nothing at all but sit and think, which in itself is actually an action of doing nothing.

So then is nothing an action of doing nothing?

If I should act and the outcome be disastrous is that better than not acting at all?

Is a poor outcome worse than no outcome, which is actually from no action, which is actually an action of inaction?

What deeds go undone as we sit and ponder the meaning and effects of too much pondering?

And there is the question. Is it possible to ponder too much, or even to act too much?

Tackle Box

The summer I was 8 I received

the best gift of my life.

Fishing lures.

You know the kind:

neon, plastic, ugly.

I woke up one sticky morning

and on my dresser

was a whole box.

Neon green and yellow

plastic...ugly.

No bow, no note,

just a little box of

fishing lures,

sitting next to my

sparkle nail polish

and a Barbie hairbrush.

I begged my father that

spring to take me fishing,

like he had every year with my

brother since practically birth.

Finally, I got a curt 'ok'

and I ran to the house,

as he turned back to pruning

Mom's wild rose bushes.

The day came and I

rose and beat the sun,

snagging my brother's

worn Sox cap and fishing rod.

Dad was actually smiling with his teeth

as we pulled up to the lake

and he grabbed a plastic white tub

out of the cooler.

I had my hook ready

and he peeled back the lid.

Pinched between two fingers,

a living, squirming thing.

I swallowed so hard

and held open my palms.

He silently dropped it into

my cradled hands.

I knew I had to kill it,

this panicked, squirming life.

I bit my tongue and wedged

it onto the hook, but

turned away so my father

wouldn't see my tears.

We fished.

I tried to talk about the weather

and my limited knowledge

about cars, baseball, politics.

I clutched the rod and it

shuddered in my

white-knuckled hands.

My father said nothing.

On the ride home from the lake

I thought about the worm.

I killed it, and now I was going to hell.

We didn't catch any fish

despite our sacrificial slaughters.

My cheeks burned.

I was not a boy.

I did not know about NASCAR

I did not know about grilling

and I did not anything about fishing.

Mom promised that he loved me,

but what good was a daughter

to a man who didn't understand

the importance of

sleepovers, two-piece bathing suits

or Aaron Carter? What is a daughter

worth to a man like that?

The tackle box

of neon, plastic, ugly

fishing lures

had the answer.

A daughter

is worth

a lot.

Wittle Boy

Underneath my shirt is my skin

Underneath my skin is my heart

Underneath my heart lies a lost boy

Not a man but a boy, lost within himself

Underneath the boy, the man he sees himself becoming

Underneath who he wants to become, Success

Not only financially, but in all aspects,

Life, Love, Happiness

Behind all of this restraint

Stress from what is expected of him

From what he expects from himself

Not knowing

Hesitation.

Afraid to bridge the gap between boy and man

Underneath it all?

Who I am…