I used to like watching the
lobsters who live
at the grocery store.
We'd go to pick up a prescription
and I'd drag mom to the
seafood isle,
press my grubby fingers
to the glass tank,
ask about the
rubber bands on their pinchers.
Dad's colon gave up
sometime after I was born.
The doctors had to
remove the whole thing,
rearrange it all, and
Frankenstein what intestines
decided not to quit.
When I am four years old,
my interests include lobsters,
foodcourt Doritos,
and playing with the remote
to dad's hospital bed.
Listening to it hum
while I sit next to him,
giggling as it
shifts.
Up, up, up,
now flat again.
I'm almost old enough for
kindergarten
when the dog
can't use the stairs anymore.
Mom and dad are left carrying
forty-five pounds of
german shepherd-greyhound
to and from the basement.
Bryce goes to the vet and
doesn't come back.
Something about
internal bleeding.
All I remember thinking
is how
that's where the blood's
supposed to be?
In middle school,
mom slices her finger open with a
serrated knife.
She presses a rag to it
as it drips down the
kitchen sink.
I have to convince her to
go to Urgent Care,
ends up needing stitches.
There's still bloodied
Bounty paper towels in the
cup holder when we
go to drive home.
That isn't where blood's
supposed to be.
I'm fourteen when we get
"two weeks" off school
and a dystopian voice
at the grocery store
starts telling everyone to stay
six feet apart.
I have to wear a mask
if I want to see the
lobsters.
Fifteen years old when we take a
day trip to Philly
dressed in all black
for my uncle's funeral.
I don't cry,
just gaze at the
stain glass windows and
try to forget how
church pews are meant to
hold something holy.
Seventeen when a car
decides not to look
and I'm swerving
into the wrong lane.
Mia white knuckles the
passenger seat,
encourages me to pull over.
Other car doesn't stop,
and the Subaru is left with
a thin scar.
She tells me I'm
unreasonably calm.
I nod and pretend my foot isn't
jack-rabbiting the brake pedal
while we sit parked on
Page street.
I don't visit the lobsters anymore.
I can't help but wonder
if they know just how
close they are.
Charlotte Budman is a junior from Central Pennsylvania who enjoys far too much black coffee, not nearly enough sleep, and people watching—often all at once. She doesn't generally seek to publish her poetry, but her tenth grade English teacher is a persistent man with a penchant for leaving persuasive sticky notes.