forget me not

Natasha Taylor

Angel was the easy-sell. Bore the envied skinny gene, and we wondered if angels really did
embody those plastic thighs, shoulder blade wings. If so, were the rest of us hell-bent demons,
scrapping around for crumbs to sugarcoat and starve ourselves? Don’t give me that look, I told
God. You gave us the free will-to-hate-thy-self. True jealousy is blaming others for the fact
you’ve pondered death. We’ve all done it, but then the doc reminds you kids are dying from
cancer so you shove that shit down like the psycho-pills you’ve stashed away for the blizzard. If
it ever comes. Some clingy prayers maintain that there’s a wide blue sky above my head. If I
need to I’ll fall into it and eat clouds like the cotton candy I dreamt about when I was a kid. I’ll
become the chorus to an autobiographical love song, ride the swell of music till I’m face to face
with the mirror and say Goddamit, can we make up? It might take some convincing, but in the
end I’ll write it a love poem and it’ll start ugly-crying till it soaks my cheeks. I’ll look up to God
again and say, guess you were right. Winning is different than I imagined. Less like roses. More
like forget-me-nots.

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Natasha Bredle is an emerging young writer whose work has been featured in the Incandescent Review, Streetcake Magazine, Ice Lolly Review, and Paper Crane Journal, among others. She won first place in the 2021 Dove Tales Writing For Peace poetry contest. Perspectives on mental health and ponderings about the emotional capacity of human beings tends to occupy her headspace. She wants you to know (in the most cliché way possible) that you are not alone.

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