This is not something I measure on a rubric. Your thoughts at 18 on your mom who took drugs and the boyfriend who came back. That night burned in your feet can't forget the way you ran and never stood still again. Never free of that man and unable to forgive. When that's the answer you just stop asking the question. I watched you come to class in a bigger sweatshirt each day and write poems and say the counseling was bullshit. You held yourself like a container holds water. I could touch you and hug you, but he took that too, so I just say that you are you still. You are you still. You still are.
Christine Davis teaches writing at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where she lives with her husband, Justin, and their children, Jett and Cadence. She moonlights as an instructor at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth. Her work can be found in Snapdragon Journal, Paragon Press, Clarion, Crack the Spine and more.
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