CW: gun violence
My child drew a picture
of our house,
me sitting here in the
pouch of the armchair,
my body threatened
with a violence.
The pain was
not extraordinary,
circle
within circle
for eyes
balanced on an
empty triangle.
Six lines stilted,
a blue house.
A cylinder gun
etched to my mom’s
temple.
I forgot—
when we are children
we can’t keep from popping up
from where we are told
to stay.
We crumple
the spirograph
screams of our parents.
And now I hear them,
and now they follow me.
He knew
I would never leave this
boxed house.
It wasn’t as if
I was
a child
—
Cristina Medina writes and edits in Los Angeles. She is a recent graduate of Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in North American Review, Lunch Ticket, Angel City Review, and elsewhere.
Artwork by: Senjuti Kundu
