Rocks | Mk Smith Despres
I wake up from a dream in which my daughter faces a small social injustice, but she is in 7th grade, so all of it is huge, really. In the waking world, I have watched her step back from her eyes and hold disappointment on the tongue like a cold rock. Swallow it. I cannot go back to sleep without seeing the dream where she is alone on the bus, so I cannot go back to sleep.
In the waking world, she asks for pajama pants for Christmas so she can wear them to school. So she can go cozy up the front walk, the one where she saw her friend last week, neck red and swollen with trying and trying and trying. So she told, right away she told. The friend went home. Went somewhere. And she went to class. Swallowed rocks. Took a math test.
Instead of sleeping, I play a game on my phone. Pour colored sand onto colored sand like those bottles on the boardwalk, but no one can shake these ones up. They are fixed in blue light and glass, and there is even a go back button. That go back button is the best. Just an arrow that tells you exactly what it means and does exactly what it says. My daughter didn’t know what it meant when, three days later, a different friend texted I want to kms. So the friend told her. And she told me. Swallowed. dw said the friend. Translation: don’t worry. She does.
I write my own hurt across every one of hers, but try not to let her read it. I don’t tell her don’t worry but I also don’t hold my rocks as well as she does. I never could. We cannot go back to before she knew her friends wanted to die, and didn’t. But we can go back to the river. And when her little sister digs and asks if sand can become rocks again, she starts to say no, but then looks at me and asks, Can it? Can you believe that under so much pressure, something can become whole again? Yes.
About the Author:
Mk Smith Despres writes, teaches, and makes art in western Massachusetts. Their poems appear or are forthcoming in Frozen Sea, Hunger Mountain, Thimble, Radar, Salamander, and elsewhere. They also write books for kids. Their picture book, Night Song, was one of Bank Street’s Best Children’s Books of the Year.