Faye Turner-Johnson
Life – You Untrustworthy Bastard
when I was younger I played as a child running throughout my grandmother's shotgun shack amid tall grasses somewhere on the edge of Eden banging the screen door shut/shrieking as sun and wind kissed the face of my star-burned skin when I was younger I dreamed as a child baking mud pies/reaching to touch angels in the sky/cupping butterflies in my hands begging to tag along with my big momma and auntie Val hair too wild/go look in the mirror spit-brushing/dashing back with the speed of Flo-Jo but the get-away had been clean/they were nowhere to be seen mud pies flying all over the yard sitting on the stoop waiting for their return pouting lips soon turning to smiles/gentle breezes warming my heart new baby frog catching my eye/trying its legs under heaven's blue sky off again I go/the end of summer's fair weather driving me in sitting by the fireplace creating baby dolls with coke bottles and straw hair thinking the fun would never end somewhere around the time of Christmas trees and Santa Claus shoe boxes filled with winter nuts, fruit and candy canes a lump of coal rolled its way into my life when two strangers stood at the door of paradise