Neither Right nor Beautiful
I can’t imagine
a life without sweet
red summer cherries
dying my fingers
and my tongue, so I
bite one in half, glide
it over my top
and bottom lip like
gloss to make the boys
and girls notice me,
and when they still don’t
I’ll try something else
but I don’t know what
yet, and I still can’t
imagine a life
without wondering
how to be better,
how to look better,
how to feel better
about who I am,
how I look, what I
feel, and I hope but
don’t really believe
that one day I might
bite into a sweet
red cherry and think
of nothing at all.
*
Sarah Lynn Hurd is a writer and poet living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has recent work in Thimble, Fractured Lit, trampset, Flash Frog, Anti-Heroin Chic, and elsewhere. Her writing often explores grief, nostalgia, womanhood, and self-perception, and she has a BA in creative writing and English literature from Grand Valley State University. Stop by sarlynh.com to visit her online.
Sweet cherries grown in Michigan are magical, and your poem reflects this. Thank you.
Beautiful, moving, sad.