I was never taught how to use a lawnmower because my parents didn’t want me to lose a foot.
By Christine Horner
If you could see how clumsy I am, you would understand. When God churned me into this world in his heavenly cauldron, he forgot the pinch of hand-eye coordination and he left out the tablespoon of social grace, but he added a few heaping pounds of childhood obesity as well as a handful of major depressive disorder—just for good measure. I was formed into a messy, buttery compound and thrust into this world to be spread on burnt toast, then dropped on the floor face-down.
Leaving Home
Leaving home is not like “flying the nest”— it is like diving head-first into a shallow public pool, chlorinated water flooding your sinuses as your skull thumps the slick concrete at the bottom. You float to the surface, blood spilling out of your nostrils, staining the water red. Bubbles rise from the bottom half of your bathing suit as you struggle to reach the ladder, eyes shut tight from your head pain and the bright sunlight that litters your face with freckles and dyes your skin hot pink. You had hoped that the pool would cool your burn, but the pool was heated, and it stung almost as much as your crush’s laughter at you, at your pain, at your embarrassment. He looks like a younger Orlando Bloom, raising his finger to point at you, finally getting out of the pool only to trip over a plastic chair. Tears cloud your round, blushing face and bloody snot oozes from your nose into your mouth while you cry for your mother to take you home.
I Will Age like Whiskey
I have heard that I’m supposed to buy creams and cleansers and serums to prevent premature wrinkles and that I should stay out of direct sunlight lest I look like a seventy-five-year-old woman when I’m a seventy-five-year-old woman.
Raisined knuckles turn people off as do the happy little lines on my forehead— indents from delicious laughter.
“Like a fine wine,” they say.
But what if I’m not a fine wine? What if I’m whiskey, hearty and direct with a profound finish? I don’t desire to age like a fine wine left in a cold cellar to collect dust with bitter cabernets. Barrel me in a cozy wooded cabin and leave me to ferment there. I’ll mature in my own time.
BIO
Christine Horner (she/her) is a poet who recently received her AFA in Creative Writing from Normandale Community College and is seeking a BFA in English from Augsburg University in Minneapolis. She is previously unpublished and enjoys knitting, cooking, and reading when she is not writing, working, or going to classes.