Twilight Movie Marathon

by Sally Young

art by Cal Shin

In fifth & sixth & seventh grades I scribbled notes through science class

in a daze of hazy

forests & fields.

Some days were meant for dreaming of something other

than rocks & bugs &

sometimes someone saw me

eyes ablaze in sunlight somehow with E&B forever 

tattooed right above my heart.

I think classmates were jealous that I was somewhere

they were not.

Forever, for real, forever, in that flower field of sparkle &

forever was my sixth-grade certainty

that all would be alright.

I’d sprint from stupid soccer practice & straight into my room.

Sorry, no time to talk ‘til dinner

there’s science homework to do.

Then I only tore my eyes away when the blue light burnt my fingertips

& then I’d scan the secrets

stashed away on well-worn pages.

Scenes bit through my skin & sucked the blush from my cheeks.

Chemistry & carbon dating

they taught me something new.

Didn’t breathe ‘til the daydream ended & I bent my independence.

Devour & deliver & destroy me!

I’m desperate for this hope.

But somewhere along the road to Washington I grew up & got bigger.

Red pickup truck seems silly now &

it started raining harder &

forever became a little less long &

the fields, they lost their shimmer.

My twilight was eclipsed by dawn & men who didn’t glow. 

Middle school became back then

& baseball was lost to the storm.

Blue turned into black & my heart still has a bruise

from when the world read my tattoo &

told me to grow up.