Medussa, Come Home
Fighting for the sake of fighting is easy, at first, until you taste the
blood in your mouth. ‘Til you hear your father every time you raise your voice.
Lately you’ve been seeing yourself each time you cry,
in the backs of your eyelids. All the years never smoothed it out.
This time she’s just the kid you were.
Her face is sweeter than you know how to be.
It’s November again and you’re cold to the bone. Her photo’s in your phone case.
You love her
more than anything.
Even in the summer, the nightmares never left you.
You put your hair in pigtails to feel like you’re going home.
Her face is watching you from the windowsill.
The fear is all you have left of her, the tears on the drive home, the anger you love
like a daughter.
Sure, it shouldn’t have been you, but most of the time you just know
it shouldn't have been her.
You’ll never be that little girl again.
Eleanor DelSignore is a freshman at Plymouth State University (USA) and a former NH Teen Poet Laureate. Her work is published in Marias at Sampaguitas, the Cliche Teen Journal, Footprints on Jupiter, Body Without Organs, Stardust Literary Journal, and others, and has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She’s double-majoring in English and Criminology, and plans to pursue law school in the future. When she’s not writing, she enjoys knitting, skiing, and swimming. "Medusa, Come Home" received second place in Under the Madness Magazine's Kick-Off Poetry Contest, judged by Ala Khaki.
