Dear Younger Me

Words by Jaclyn Isis

Dear younger me, I’m sorry.

I’m sorry we let people in who were supposed to be walked out.

I’m sorry for relying on others who didn’t have our best interest in mind. It made us feel so lost in time, we tried to rewind and replay the good memories only to find the dark ones again.

I’m sorry for the cold nights where we laid awake waiting for someone to come save us. The truth is, we didn’t need saving.

We don’t need a hero. We are our own savior.

Dear younger me, pray to me. Pray to your highest self. Pray to me and I promise I’ll answer to let you know how special you are. We weren’t nurtured the way we were supposed to be, mentally neglected, no bedtime stories.

But that doesn’t mean there’s a monster under our bed, the biggest monster of all lives in our head. It’s time to confront our demons, understand our wounds. It’s time to heal and let go of the balloons. We’ve built so much weight inside and it’s getting hard to hide…

The monster relies on our fear.

Are you afraid dear?

Afraid of your own power because we have been conditioned to be weak?

We have been conditioned to remain bleak even when the sun shines

So again, I think it’s time

Younger me

To finally see The person we are destined to be.

Release your wounds, you, I mean WE are free. Free from damage and new to repair,

Let down your hair, I’ve got you now. Our childhood was not always blissful, it seems life chose to give us the red pill.

But I think that’s only because God knows of our strong will.

God sees and God knows our struggles, remember it’s all a test to take us to the next level But we have to be willing We have to will our power

We have to love our flaws and loss-es through every hour Without gratitude we cannot grow

With realizing everything that has happened wasn’t just for show, we can finally know, where we’re supposed to go.

Younger me, live on through our spirit I see your worries. We are in this together, Don’t you ever forget me.

Pollinating

Art by Hannah Reilly

Closets

Words by Susan DiPronio

I would when a child small and unnoticed hide in closets behind the clothes

I often went on hiatus carefully reconfiguring the shirts, skirts and dresses back to how they were originally. Thinking that if someone should look inside they would only see the clothes, not me. I felt safe from everything. at times the truth words said images offered shattered me

My favorite closet was off our front hallway. It had an outside facing round window near the ceiling and was used for storing vacuum cleaners and floor buffers and other nameless odds and ends. hanging nearby dripped a couple of tattered jackets unknowns used for dirty chores garden digging

Burrowing among the many contraptions, I’d drape myself in the gentle clothes smelling of my mom and dad and use the cleaning attachments to propel my ship into outer space. The round window was my portal. to guide me away as stars zoomed by planets spinning suns grinning black holes laughing a child’s view adrift from reality

While I, wearing the uniform of another time, would steer my starship twisting the vacuum appendages left, right and forward on a mission to other worlds, other days and nights, someplace else.

One Sunday Aunt Mary was sitting in our kitchen. Her back purposefully turned to block the sunlight streaming in from the windows. She was barely upright, thin and sallow, only shadows shaped her face. One side, cheek to chin, sunken from a merciless surgery, hidden under a beautiful silk scarf, floral and colorful. It slightly fluttered over the emptiness. Illness had not stolen her sense of style. She held her beauty. It captured me. the affirmation: the word cancer whispered attempting to shield (or deny) breaths held tight

My Aunt’s left arm was clutched around her body with her right hand at her throat as if holding it all together. She would lightly dab at her lips with a delicate handkerchief as her mouth shifted uncontrollably and dripped when attempting to speak, to form words, to be included, to be one of us, to be normal. her speech slurred her damp eyes winced thoughts of never seeing her again invaded me Determined, I climbed into my spaceship to find her in another realm.

To search the uncharted universe for a welcoming planet where the sunlight would be glancing off her perfect face, skin like mocha cream, as she waved her silk scarf flagging me in for a safe landing. I look for her still when the moon bright and full lights up the darkened sky and I am flying by

Art by JeNene Elmandorf