“You’s pretty, just ain’t top shelf is all,” he says, yanking my ponytail upwards like a fishing rod reeling me in. He leans over, his whiskey breath stinging my ear:

“Problem is ya aim too high, my dear.”

But what the hell is so great about a shelf topper anyway?

My eyes: two balls bouncing with rage.

The men I seem to pick, they never turn the page.

They read from one book: the one they pen themselves.

The one they quote when they know better

So everyday they recite:

Climb this way, cook that way, your face is too puffy; your hips look askew.

If you feel that way, my lord, trade me in for something shiny and new.

They are the preachers with only one sermon.

That long, tiresome speech on repeat.

No congregation necessary.

Just one naive, broken girl who listens

weighed down by lead feet.

If I’m not a shelf topper, am I somewhere in between?

Maybe I am that drawer that hangs a little uneven, that never opens all the way.

The one you swear you’ll fix but just not today.

I wait for an apology.

But it comes out more like a cough.

Insincere

Full of spit and spite.

He winks, blows a kiss in my direction

As if to make it right.

I reach up only to swat it back.

He thinks this is how you patch a wound.

I forgive him like always but my heart yells, “Soon.”

Soon I will have that grit to hit the gravel and go.

To spit on this soil where nothing can grow.

Between nothing and nothing sits everything.

And everything is what I need.

But when I start to really drift

The thought falls with a thud,

A hopeful melody buried deep in the mud.

That soft, sleepy cry, yanks me back from my sweet unknown.

My daughter toddles toward me, two years and six days now, holding her imaginary phone.

“Who should we call today?” I ask, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

She holds the phone to my ear.

Listening.

Her smile filling the empty space.