Lizzy Burnam 🐞

To think—
everything I’ve learned by now
and still what I want
more than anything 
is to carry my joy 
like a small blue egg 
in a woven basket. 

To curl my hair 
around my fingers, 
to take notes 
and only speak 
in questions. 

To shimmer
like a freshwater fish 
and drift with the tide. 
To be a green glass bottle 
with a message inside. 

To rise as cool and early 
as the dew on sprouting grass 
and as certain as the sun
behind any sheet of rain. 

To always 
smell like coconut 
or vanilla bean. 

To be as small 
and as sweetly pillowed 
as the seeds 
of a strawberry. 

I’m not sure what to do 
with this gentle girl 
whose brawn and bite
are as thin and light 
as butterfly wings. 

Once, I let her out
to dance in a field 
of purple wildflowers. 

She danced as dumb 
and free as she’d ever been 
until she turned around 
and saw how many 
petals she’d crushed 
with the soles of her feet.