Dear Hazel

By Malia Waddles

This city’s still mine,

But it feels like yours. 

Screeching memories clash with 

This urban song: 

I breathe and bleed ‘til my heart does stop. 

Brighter and fresher days lie among 

The shadows and the stubborn light between.

Pocket change and branching, aching joints,

Promise and pity:

I dream of trusting myself again. 

Words overused and bruised beyond salvation,

I dream of feeling and believing. 

The love I deliver breeds doubt and loathing: 

Handwritten and carefully scripted—

Was any of it true?

I’m much too old for skinned knees and fantasies,

But I’ve forgotten what it’s like to watch the sky. 

I’ve forgotten what it’s like to laugh this sweetly. 

I smoke my evening lungs dry and cough my way through my sentences, 

Dreaming and praying that the life I had then

Finds its way back to me.