Natalie, 2026

 

When I think of Natalie,

now,

I think of the 

little girl 

who saved me

from 

a deranged father,

and a neglectful 

Mother 

at the earliest, 4 o'clock 

hours of scared, terrifying

 mornings. 


I think of the teenage girl 

I watched The Simpsons

with and talked about 

what little I knew of the Dead 

Kennedys Frankenchrist 

Trial and her boyfriends, 

Steve, that crazy

hitchhiker guy 

who stayed at our 

Kent Cliffs house 

and a papersack 

full of condoms 

and 

when Natalie eventually 

left for 

Connecticut 

and eventually Illinois 

after that. 


I think of the one 

just six years older 

than me, only daughter 

of my Mother's 

first failed marriage, 

the first one who knew 

how evil Betty is/was.

I think of suicide 


after suicide 


after suicide 


attempt 


of different states, 

different people, 

different, usually 

terrible 

arrangements. 


I think of one more fake 

one, another enemy 

of Chief Broom 

in One Flew Over 

the Cuckoo's Nest. 

A now-grown, seemingly 

grown... Woman, 

listening to her 

Mother's terrible 

footsteps 

in dark, blank halls 

of the memory 

and her little (not so 

little) children who won't 

speak to her nor I. 


I 

try 

to remember 

that little girl. 


The thoughts 

rarely 

take. 





**** 

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