image from poetess' personal scrapbook
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We did not inherit the yard~ we seized it, marked its borders with stick-swords and the broken spines of action figures. The porch was never just a porch— it was the prow of a ship, a courtroom bench, a makeshift classroom, the lip of a volcano. We named it ours by the sheer weight of our footprints. Attics were not for storage~ they were kingdoms where we ruled with cardboard crowns and whispered secrets to the spiders. The ladder groaned beneath us, but what did it know of borders? Even fences were negotiable~ every knothole a spyglass, every loose board a backdoor. The neighbors’ oak was our watchtower, its branches heavy with the crime of our trespass. Childhood isn’t a game you win. It’s the scrape of knees on forbidden rooftops, the click of a latch that wasn’t meant for your hands. It’s the map you drew in defiance of keep out and no and don’t you dare~ then folded into your pocket, like a stolen territorial flag. you may read the related memoir vignette at: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/the_girl_in_the_garage_13643
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