I have some housemates. They are my wonderful husband of almost 11 years, a nine-year-old son, my one-year-old rascal of a Labrador retriever (destroyer of all things), and a fluffy 6-year-old grey and white tuxedo cat. Am I difficult to live with? I am pretty easygoing, but I know I have some habits that would be sort of annoying…I am going to try to view myself objectively, which I find tricky. Time to be honest.

I am turning this into a “Newlyweds” game. Hubs and I know each other pretty well. My sister played this game at my bridal shower. She asked me a series of questions and then played a video of my then fiancé answering the same questions. He got almost all of them right! Even the obscure: what dorm did Sam live in freshman year of college? …

I dream a world of open-air smiles
where unlike minds shake hands
on the mere acknowledgement
of humanity
and crossing paths on this globe
sharing the same relative era

I dream a world of children grown
out of this revolution: resilient, loving
educated, inventive, and kind
and their children well-fed and in service
to nourish both the earth and her creatures

I dream a world of respected professions
educators, artists, and doctors, alike
souls meet through spirit rather than skin
each person holding each other’s heart
calling each other home

toward truth
toward healing
toward freedom
toward awareness
toward education
toward…

Would you please just come down from there?
Or here — I will pass the mirror up to you. Look deeper.
Always someone else’s kid breaking the rules and this teacher-mom is left scolding what isn’t mine.
I turn my back and your mom never turns around.
So abandonment goes.

As we brace ourselves for civil war,
you have proudly trained yourself on video games
and past deployment déjà vu.
You proclaim the basement days
have ended, but we never wanted to barricade.
We never wanted to feel this way.

Patriotism proclaimed under the influence of a coma.
A drug so blinding, you disregard your childhood dreams
because, of course, you were never taught
to deal with disappointment. …

XI.

after you tell me you love me
you’ll kiss my head
while I lean into your fleece jacket
you’ll pretend I am someone else
then leave me wondering
through the hurricane
and never return a call

it will be three weeks
until we work the same
shift and you, forced with
the reality, will try an
escape hatch

VII.

you’ll find a new woman
with an interesting face
a new mountain climber
with the same name as me
when I visit you,
inevitably I’ll volunteer
to go pick up beer with her
some kind of self-sabotage
like a curious…

long distance
our language was lyrics
marker tip
absorbed by sealed
envelopes

the very idea
of each other
wallowing in
missing what could
be if only
if only we were
older and in charge
of the space between
and so we collected days
on the pages

after a summer
night where we
lay together
for each other’s first
time, some mixed tape
you made the songs
of our childhood gone

lilacs always meant
the last hours with
someone as we drifted
our separate ways
for love so young,
an intoxication so
intense, one of us
would have to move on

in my fantasy, someone
found the box of letters
you left on the bus
and knew my words
as some epistolary
fantasy to be cherished
instead of a Greyhound
driver, tossing those
colorful envelopes
in the trash can of
passengers’ abandoned
dreams.

Samantha Lazar 2021

I hope you have snow where you live. In North Carolina, all we get is teased (unless you live in the mountains). Usually by now we have had at least one good 1–2 inches, enough to make the kiddos run to the windows and squeal.

I am excited to share some writing that has dazzled me over the past two months. I hope you will read and enjoy. Thank you for helping Sky Collection grow. Writing is more fun with friends!

In case you missed our most recent quote prompt:
A Power to Heal is inspired by the amazing Stacey Abrams. …