Some people are taught how to write
Framed parchment, fancy script
hanging pretentiously
above cherry wood roll top desks
brimming with pomp and circumstance
They write villanelles about
summer sunsets
plumes of pink exploding
across an inky sky
Solemn elegies dedicated to ancestors
dearly departed
but not forgotten
Forlorn odes to crisp morning dew
and the lopsided grin
of an ex-lover
They have vivid dreams about rhyming schemes
They paint the world with pastels
rich hues of blue and green
dance across virgin canvas
Liquefied language rolls easily
onto silky cream pages
Romantic and precise as a period
made by a felt tipped pen
Some of us aren’t schooled in how to write
No framed parchment with our names
Written brilliant black
in sharp calligraphic font
will ever exist
We learned how to write the nights
we wrestled the wine bottles from our mother’s grasp
just to pour the fermented red liquid
viscose like blood
down the kitchen sink
so she wouldn’t fall down
anymore
We learned how to write on nights
that daddy didn’t come home
and mama sat crying salty tears
into her empty wine glass
praying he was dead on the side of the street
instead of in another woman’s bed
We learned to write by flashlight
under layers of thick quilts
scented with moth balls
that muffled
the screams until daybreak
We wouldn’t recognize a villanelle
if it slapped us across the face
We were never taught the proper way to use a semicolon
or the archaic difference between
a hyphen and a dash
But we know the pain
The kind that eats us slowly from the inside out
The kind that never leaves
but lurks in the backdrop
of everything we do
The kind that makes us who we are
The kind that can only be expressed by the freedom
of pen on paper
We lack an MFA
We have a degree in life instead
Jennifer Elizabeth Saunders hails from Bishop’s Falls Newfoundland, Canada. She is eternally stuck in the 90’s with a 1940’s flair and can be reached at jennifer_elizabeth_saunders@hotmail.com.
Her work has been published in the literary journals Anderbo, Silver Apples Magazine, Buck Off Magazine, Vending Machine Press and most recently in the Forthcoming Chaffey Review.