~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Marigold Lord

Twenty Candles

Lord, I thought I was grown

at 18, crawling

out my ivy choked window, avoiding

landslides, listening

to the crickets scream

while my 2005 dodge caravan

left it all behind in a chemical

cloud.

That’s when I met my golden

ticket boy, Atlanta traffic tornado

chaser; I, his speed

trap, Waffle House socialite.

Bless his pretty heart.

He didn’t have a clue.

Didn’t know I had a death wish,

a diminishing appetite, growing up

too fast, crawling 

out of my window to

his technicolor,

suburban

sweet home Mississippi,

and his daddy’s money trickled

into my empty gas tank

always secretly, but

I’m not stupid.

No boy is a savior,

but he tried, coaxing

me to eat pb&j

and sit on some stranger’s leather couch

to recount the unutterable

as I wilted under a blood moon.

God, you listened to him,

while it felt that my prayers only hit the popcorn ceiling

bouncing back into me.

I recall a sunset in the Delta, his

white hot righteous fury,

gripping the steering wheel

and my hand,

a hand that was far too torn for

his rusty needle stitches.

He told me I never deserved it, and

Lord, he still walks with that knowledge

of those things,

and it’s been years.

Cicadas belt a pretty song and I walk

home, sporting grass stains

embarrassingly proud of myself,

after somersaulting for the first time

and I’m learning how to make new friends

and make lemon ginger tea for their

asthmatic chests. With them,

rain is peppermint and moons are

cheddar, and I’m a book,

never too tedious to read.

And I know now with more confidence

as I wheeze out twenty flickers,

standing awkward while they sing

and watch

the gooey wax ooze

onto coffee cake,

I’m younger now at 20

than I could’ve ever been at 18.

Marigold Lord was born and raised in rural South Georgia. She attends Berry College and is working on a bachelor’s degree in both studio art and creative writing. She loves the way that her visual art and poetry are able to be in conversation with each other, telling stories deeply rooted in the South and riddled with all the beauty and dysfunction that springs from its landscape.