My Roots
I said fuck you and hung up or maybe I didn’t but wanted to because then I was too polite to actually say that to my mother. Should it haunt me now? that you heard that word right before you inserted the plastic needle into the blue vein map of your aged arm? Because it does sometimes twinge like an old injury your brain telling your tendon that it still hurts. Like how they say plants can feel when they are touched you pulled my roots out one by one and dribbled worm dirt over my nearly sterile brain. Too much Insulin can screw you up mom and it did I wonder if it felt something like the old Red Oak in our back yard did when dad tore it down and left its stump naked and cold shivering from the pain and humiliation. Or was it like the release after you really have to pee warm and satisfying? Now my brain is filled with the worms you left there they multiply making slimy love over and over like a new couple testing their chemistry. For awhile there fuck you was all I had to say But now I dig a little deeper into the brain you ruined, remembering that those roots you tore out were your roots too and maybe you’ve heard enough for now.
A Simple Word
You join our visceral hands panting lips lust filled lives together because You are more than fornication penetration gratification. Like a mother knows her child before it is born you know me, every patterned tilting inch. To you we are not constraining skin climaxing nerves cheap orgasms chafing words that gather on the parched tongues of thousands who have felt your faltering breath on their necks and the touch of our hungry need. You are infinite, without abandon the smell that lingers on into our purple love dreams. You are all around us hidden in the crevices of goose pimpled breasts and cum filled desire. You are more than carnal knowledge the force that surrounds us that language cannot express you are simple, you are love.
Maggie Miller lives in Eau Claire, WI with her husband Ryan and a menagerie of pets. She is currently a student at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire where she is studying English with an emphasis in creative writing. In the future she would like to get her Masters of Arts in English. She would also like to acknowledge her English 410 class who gave their honest opinions of her work, and for that she is grateful.
