Sisterhood

 

So many broken pieces

of friendships

and loves…

so many that I

wear them around my neck

like a strand of

ruined pearls.

I wonder,

briefly,

if I am the only one.

Or if,

more likely,

I am one of dozens,

hundreds, thousands

of others

who believe that

by virtue of wearing

one of these strands

of ruined pearls,

we are expected to stand just out of the sun,

to languish just out of the light

and warmth

and just out of reach

of everything we want,

of everything we saw

in crystal balls and tea leaves,

of everything we were promised

by old women reading palms and by second-rate psychics

in silvery airstream trailers or patched and unlikely tents,

transient,

 behind

carnivals and fairs

and fly-by-night circuses,

and just barely out of the range of influence

of the horoscopes we read at a thousand thousand breakfasts,

 unlikely predictions given to us

for the price of the morning paper,

inky and smudged on cheap newsprint.

~ by Heather on May 8, 2008.