By: Kathryn Ward
I remember a butterfly who lands on my dress because it has a flower on it. Somewhere else someone is crying
I remember floating up to the ceiling and my thoughts moving into corners of the room and my body becoming floor
I remember easels and my brother
I remember the warmth of dirt in fall at my cousin’s house even though outside it is cold and my knuckles have torn and in between our fingers the remnants of living life pours into piles and in between trees leaves fall
I remember locks with keys and learning that locks means hair. There were many riddles in here
I remember movies that my mother taught me in textures— green velveteen, the steam off a cup of tea, emerald, cold. I remember other things about the movies but I remember this the most immediately
I remember for a few months I wanted to catch tears in a cup and drink it because I read it in a book but whenever I remembered to try to catch them I stopped crying
I remember not breathing through my nose
I remember I was going to be the Pope, the first female Pope, as God was losing control, but it was too much work and perhaps this way God would find out about Karma
I remember hitting my brother with a toy train because he wouldn’t stop singing and it bled through his hair and I felt very very awful for the first time
I remember my teeth coming out on an ice rink at night and I thought it looked like Gettysburg
I remember the twelve times I thought the world was ending. They were normal days. Imagine no emotion
I remember wishing I said things that I thought and then I remember the first time this desire bound me so completely that I chased a boy down with my car to tell him I loved him
I remember the color of the stars in Minneapolis and the color of the stars in Fargo and concrete in Minneapolis and wet grass in Fargo
I remember being old and being late
I remember how to spell my name
I remember the first boy I loved, and we planned to get married so that we could have eight days of Hanukkah and twelve days of Christmas and consequently twenty days of gifts
I remember the first girl I loved
I don’t really remember how old I was until a few years ago. In the same way I remember the song
I am a freshman at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. I hope to pursue degrees in English and sociology. My work has previously appeared in the Blue Marble Review and the Up North Literary Journal and I plan to follow a career in writing after college.