*your standard steps

— a poem by zoe pessin

lips is the porch

your standard steps have tasted all emotion

listened through days where alone was bigger than i could reach

and waited for me

to comfort, to reassure, to sit and cry and scream and sing and jump and dance

and roll and let the sun bloom on my skin

between the planks of woods above

letting two thumbs of sky scream in-between

watching his careful hands create

he promised me he would paint the fence

if i ate my vegetables, i like vegetables now

and now the fence is green, and now the fence is painted green.

sweat running on my dark arms

past his gentle eyes

down his pale cheeks

im focused on the stubborn pebble beneath my toes

we rest on your standard steps

dad in comfortable silence

never stop dreaming he said

i was still focused on the pebble

seven days until i would be fourteen

eight minutes, i waited to make sure you were asleep

three feet, i jumped out of my window that night.

three steps, standard steps, i passed. passed the fence.

six and three quarters, was how old i was when we painted it.

red sandbags of guilt weighing on my back and in my stomach

a figure offers a glass filled with a liquid to ease the guilt

head back, i drink to forget

i see swirls

sitting on your standard steps

holding the long awaited letter in my palms

im antsy today

waiting for his ketchup red truck to appear

but i couldn’t wait

i had to tell him the news

couldn’t wait to watch our thursday night television

and to see the proud look on his face when i tell him

(if only the letter came a day before)

red and blue flash in my peripheral

A man in a uniform

on our steps

“EXCUSE ME MISS”

my world shattered, instantly

dad and me and you

your standard steps were all i knew

it was a small world in which i lived

given more love than three lifetimes and you.

my heart hurts and i wish i froze time

and just looked around.