Also posted in Creative Corner so disregard if you've read them. They just feel like they belong here more. No need for comments, they are what they are.

GROWIN' PAINS

LITTLE ONE

When I grow up I'm going to be a ballerina and wear pink tights all day. My slippers will have ribbons and I will wrap them around my legs and dance until the stars come out. I will live safe inside my jewelry box house. It will be pink and soft and very safe.

Cinderella, who lives inside the wind-up watch I got when I turned six, will be my roommate. When the roof to our pink house opens we will twirl and spin to the tinkling music. Little girls all over the world will be happy when we dance for them.

When I grow up I will be loved like no other ballerina has ever been loved. But I've been six for so long now, I'm afraid to grow up. What if it hurts.

FLOWERCHILD

When I grow up the first thing I'm doin' is getting my own set of wheels. Man, I'll cruise to the coolest places on earth. Haight-Ashbury. Woodstock. Port Arthur, Texas where Joplin was born. Those are some kick-***, *****in' places.

My car will be black, inside and out. I'll use the roach clip I stole from the Head Shop on my fourteenth birthday as a key-chain. I'll go by myself, don't need anyone, don't want anyone. No way. I'm tough enough to handle anything on my own and I know how to drive. I steal Grown Up's car all the time.

When I grow up I will be the coolest chick in town. But it better happen soon or I'm bustin' out on my own. I'm afraid I'll get stuck in here. I'm afraid I'll get hurt.

GROWN UP

I should just throw this junk out, I think as I lift the lid of my childhood jewelry box. A Cinderella watch that doesn't work, a roach clip from a hundred years ago. The plastic ballerina wobbles to one side, barely able to spin now. The color pink has faded like the memories it holds.

Strange how I won't let go of certain things that have no meaning. I've kept this silly box filled with worthless trinkets all these years as if they are a part of me. As if they matter. Maybe they did once. Maybe I did, too. I don't remember.

How did I get here? Where did the years go? I was going to be a dancer, a rock star, a mother. But I have two left feet and can't hold a note. I was going to have a big family. A gaggle of kids. But I was afraid.

Afraid if and when I ever did grow up, my kids would catch my pain. I didn't want them to feel the hurt.

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GET OFF MY CLOUD

LITTLE ONE

The grass tickles my legs as I stare at the chubby white clouds and watch for Daddy to float by. My dress is the same color as the powder-blue sky and I pretend I'm wearing a halo and that I'm a meadow-angel. If I squint my eyes real tight maybe I'll see Daddy's hand peek out of the clouds. I wave hello with my hand, just in case I missed him.

Flowerchild asked me how I'll know the difference between the hand of our father and the hand of God. I think God's hands will be softer like a girls. Like Madge who uses Palmolive to soak her nails in. Daddy used Borax and had tough-looking calluses. Plus God never really did much physical labor. He created the world, got Hisself a good staff of people, then retired like Grandpa to drink beer.

Grown Up says if I listen really hard, I'll hear Daddy laughing in the wind. That's cuz he's happy up there in Heaven. I watch the clouds all day long but I never see him. Instead, giant pieces of Jiffy-Pop, a unicorn with a buck-tooth and some pretty big belly-button lint drift across the sky.

As meadow-angel I have a better chance of getting into Heaven to see Daddy. I can't wait for that day to come.

FLOWERCHILD

The fragments of rock scratch my legs as I stare at the pregnant clouds, ripe with body-parts and limbs. If I squint hard enough I can see the sky is littered with the freakin' dead. Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix. Father. Brother. Brother.

Little One likes to dream that our father is up there waiting for us. Right. Ye who wields belt and fist might ever be considered to enter the Pearly Gates. The day Daddy got there they threw his sorry *** out so fast he plummeted to earth and crashed right on through all the way to the smelly bowels of Hell. Splat.

Little One forgets what he did to the brothers. Never even thinks about the torture they went through. Well I remember. I saw the bruises. I saw the blood. I felt their pain. I make myself feel that same pain and humiliation. I do it to honor them. I'd die for them.

I feel the ground in the cemetery shift under me. Thump-thump-thump the demons tap for me. Someday they will grab my ankles and pull me under where the earth is cool and dark. I will scream blood-curdling obscenities as they scratch and claw at my soul.

I wear my father's weapon of choice that my brothers hid in the wallboards thirty years ago. When the demons haul my bad-*** off to Hell, I'm going to greet my father with the very same belt. I can't wait for that day to come.

GROWN UP

I reach over to the radio, crank it up and let Mick Jagger sing just to me.

I look to the sky and see cumulus clouds. No faces. No objects. Just clouds.

I never really had the ability to form mental images of make-believe things. I don't think I was an imaginative child. Like right now. It's hard for me to feel that my backyard is anything but my backyard. T wants me to pay attention. Stay present. Notice the wind on your face. The grass. The rocks.

But I am numb, distracted, annoyed. The hummingbirds, the humming bees, the humming of all things electric crowds my head and mixes with the chatter of voices. I hear the giggle of an innocent child; a barrage of obscenities from an angry teenager. Bits and pieces of conversations. Flashing images of a past I don't want to remember. It makes it much too hard to pay attention. I turn up the radio to drown them out and let Mick speak for me. He yells up into the sky.

Hey! You! Get off of my cloud. Don't hang around 'cause two's a crowd. On my cloud, baby.

I can't wait for that day to come.