Poem: I Was a Teenage Moth

Me on the last day of 8th grade

I covered myself with plastic chains,
Rocks and beads, embroidery thread,
Glitter paint, and soda can tabs.
I wrapped my body in ripped jeans
And t-shirts stamped
With symbols of my tribe.
So cocooned, I pupated,
Relying on my outer shell
To tell the world
Exactly who I was,
Who I wanted to be.
Inside, I gradually developed
A heart, a spine, a prefrontal cortex:
Each new organ dearly bought
And painfully grown.
At last, I realized I had emerged
The day I found
Pieces of my cocoon
Neatly boxed up and put away
As mementos from a time
When I wore my inner self
On the outside.

Poem: Sine Wave

illustration by S. King

Life happens on a sine wave.
Troughs and peaks, crests and valleys
Are part of every day,
Every week,
every year.
I can't determine
The period of this waveform
From my mortal perspective
On my little life raft
Riding each wave as it comes.
All I know is
The motion is continuous
Through life's ups and downs.
It doesn't matter
Which part of the wave
I'm surfing today -
Rise or fall,
Tomorrow will be different.