hansel and gretel, with ptsd by back-bones, literature
Literature
hansel and gretel, with ptsd
when hansel comes to with
the witch dead at his feet, he hangs gretel
off him like a blood bag, drags
her toes through the dirt, and he thinks
she has to be broken in a ballet,
she has to be broken in a pirouette.
her toes continue to click in her shoes
years later, a crunch that he is
reminded of years later again
when the moon hung
like it does at midnight, as yellow as
a sick child, facing the forest. hansel
is rubbing his blue jeans like he does
sometimes, the heels of his palms
dragging the surface like nails on wood.
it feels like fire and coal, a numbing
that feels necessary until hansel says,
“stop.” and when he sees her
there’s this boy i work with.
he is five.
he wears long sleeves
and shorts with holes in them
that are only kept together with
small clothespins and thin threads.
his hair is always cut close
to his skin, though his bangs are left
just long enough so it covers his eyes
and i know no one can see them.
but i always watch him.
only sometimes i will allow myself
to watch over someone else, even though i know
this boy will only continue to follow me.
he asks me to play,
he asks me to speak,
and sometimes, he even asks me
to hold his hand.
they are always cold and strong,
with calluses and chipped nails
that dig rough into my skin,
and
if teen dreams were teen novels by back-bones, literature
Literature
if teen dreams were teen novels
there was once a boy who had all the write words to say
with all those fancy allegories, metaphors and similes
and antonyms of synonyms, like rails and snares and storms
and organs and trains and drums and hurricanes and
hearts,
and she was only a girl with plain words, the kinds of things
that are only found in piles of papers and pens, books
she keeps where she sleeps,
that will only break when he leaves in the morning,
but she shares everything, like a boat shares a bard,
like a cigarette shares a lung, like a mouth shares other mouths,
like an artist shares her heart.
but there is a running in her heart:
not that type of b