im 16 and i love strawberries and perfectly ripe peaches.
i grew up in jersey and i love it there too.
everything is legal in new jersey.
im good at painting and bad at confrontation.
i care too much about things that don’t matter and too little about the things that do.
i think i got that from my father.
i wonder about the other things i got from him.
i wonder if he had one of those tin lunch boxes as a kid,
the kind that would clang around in his little backpack.
i wonder if he liked art and music as much as i do and i wonder if his bedroom wall as a child was covered in posters like mine is.
i wonder if he spilled jelly on his small hands when he ate jelly sandwiches.
i wonder if he would trip on his shoelaces and scrape up his small knees on the pavement.
i wonder if he loved peaches and i wonder if his father was softer to him,
if maybe he would’ve been softer with me.
and i wonder if his mother had been more consistent for him,
if maybe he could’ve been more consistent for me.
and maybe if his brother hadn’t shot himself that winter,
maybe he wouldn’t be so angry.
they say that once there’s an angry man in your home, he will stay there.
a permeant stain on white linen.
a soft dent on a perfect peach.
but i love peaches.
and strawberries and white linen
and i wish he could learn to forgive me the same way i forgive him.
Molly Jones attends Central Bucks West High School. She has enjoyed reading and writing from a young age. Her goal in sharing her work is the hope that someone is able to find it relatable and find some solace in the fact that they are not alone.
Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Emeritus Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall. To submit a poem for consideration, email it to Heraldpoetscorner@gmail.com. If the poem has been previously published, please say where it first appeared.
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