When I was much younger than I am now, my father tried to get me to watch the stars.
He would bring blankets and pillows out to our front lawn
and we would sit there for what felt like hours. (Little kid hours, can you imagine?)
He would point out constellations, and I
would be listening to the humming of the bugs in the trees, and watching the clouds
take shape in the moonlight.
My father used to eat ice cream with chocolate fish, and
we used to watch American Idol together, and now
I had a dream last night I was on a scavenger hunt,
where every item on the list was “the man on the moon” and every time
it meant something else, and I could never quite get it right.
I could never find just the thing you needed.
I could never pay attention to the things I was meant to. I always always get lost half
way there and I can never find the words to explain
it wasn’t my intention. My ribcage can’t expand enough to keep us all safe,
to keep us all warm.
Lately, I have been hanging up pictures of other people’s hands,
this makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m better at watching the sky now,
waiting for storms. Watching the clouds move in and out between the ground
and the sky, I used to believe there was a break
between where the sky began and the earth ended.
Like there was just a space of emptiness between me and there
and if I could just bridge that gap, if I could just figure out
the difference between here and there I
would be able to recall every constellation my father ever tried to teach me.
I would be able to say, “I haven’t forgotten
the feeling of the heavens, I have never lost the infinite.”
Sophia Menconi is a first year student at Denison University, where she studies Theatre and Creative Writing. She has been writing for as long as she can remember, but has only recently focused in on poetry. Her work has previously been featured in Pulp, Literary and Arts Magazine.
–Background & Foreground Photography by Jon Damaschke
Buy Sneakers | Mens ASICS GEL-Kayano 28 Running Shoe at Fitforhealth