The Brain

I became an eyewitness,
at the age of six years old,
Wisconsin grown,
with almond eyes that swirled in the corners,
like an individually painted wave,
of The Great Wave Of Kanagawa.

The tide of the wilderness shifts and swells,
contrasting shades of pine and timber.
As the difference,
between my parents and I,
stems from our reaction to the Brain.

The Brain,
formerly belonging to the Deer,
swirled like pink foliage,
in a desert of red.
Every curvature, every dedicated,
unique nerve fizzled like an exposed wire,
and the aroma-
strangely earthly and raw.

In a house,
barricaded in between two green palms of Mother Nature,
Father was a hunter-
something he desperately longed to pass to his crinkle-eyed children,
however much it abhorred me.
Mornings in mist and sweaty dawns spent in a decrepit hut,
where my interest fell to the pages in my hands,
rather than the Browning Rifle to my left.
Where my fear of the blossoming crimson
from a fur pelt,
innocence,
crumpled like a wadded piece of parchment,
overcame my desire to be the Daughter.

The Daughter,
that never stuck her nose up,
or refused to dirty her hands.
I have the curve of Mother’s nose,
and the sullen eyes of Father-
but my mind often drifted to things
that they do not believe
and it became a line in which
the distinction between is so severe,
it is unknown what is real,
what is a facade.

Feeling the absence of confinement,
completely utterly freed,
with feeling feral and young.
To the outside eye,
my parents and I would appear to be
connected to one another-
but when skin is exposed,
muscle is pricked off by our ancestors
wielding pliers-
our Brains would appear differently.
Perhaps my Brain was a fresh new shade of pink,
or Mother’s Brain amorphously stretched to a new horizon,
or Father’s Brain contained more curves and reflexes.
However bewitchingly hideous they were,
specks of dust and blood,
impeccably and irrevocably,
different.

Specks of dust and blood,
in our forms completely,
We are specks of dust and blood.
Again we belong to the earth.

***

 Lauren Goulette is a current high school junior from Wisconsin who enjoys creative writing and yoga in her free time. Her Instagram handle is @lauren.goulette where her poems are often featured.