I woke up with a music box playing inside my head I know it was mine as a girl purple and yellow fabric an elderly woman would love wrapped around a plastic mechanism rope glued around the edges a butterfly cross-stitched into the top It was supposed to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow which I liked because it meant escape was possible if only you could ask the right questions It feels cold behind my eyes and I'm thinking about my body as a country and what happens when you leave whether there is anywhere else to go if your hands on me are supposed to feel that way what comfort is if it's okay to say that I miss you what will happen if I spill on the carpet why when I'm sad you give me complicated objects a silver bird's nest with pearls inside and tell me each one is one of us that you are always with me why I think so often about running away from home when I am told it's not what I think that children who run away from home have to go somewhere and your bag gets heavier with each step what happens if I decide to live inside my closet or hold my breath for the right amount of time or wear nylon gloves if I know the cure for a disease and just have to learn how to say what I mean and every second I don't do that makes me worse if I have another father somewhere who is better than the one I know why the things I'm afraid are hurting me are always less real even if being afraid is what's hurting me and I learn to hide it because it is a simpler equation to work out and though I am never told that children should be seen and not heard I am told to leave myself alone to practice to not make any noise for the next hour because things are happening that are bigger than myself and I will know what they mean when I am older I am told that inside a piano there are hammers and wires that inside I am electric conducting through fluid and so why does it feel like there is a stopper behind my heart someone sitting on my chest birds in the corner of my eyes why am I visited by things no one else sees

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
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