Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash
I did it to myself--yes
& no. Yes, you smoked
for sixty years & no, you didn’t
ask your father to touch you, or your mother
to pretend she didn’t
know
Yes, you chose bad
men & no, you didn’t know
what a good man was
No, you didn’t walk
among the uplifting. No, you didn’t
know all that you were
or could have been
Remember that time I visited? Before you knew
your lungs held tumors?
You were a skinny thing
At least my figure is good, see?
I nodded, knowing this wasn’t quite right, knowing
there was less of you, knowing
you still did not know
all that you are
Thea Swanson lives in the state of Washington and holds an MFA in Writing from Pacific University in Oregon. She is the Founding Editor of Club Plum Literary Journal, and her flash-fiction collection, Mars, was published by Ravenna Press in 2017. Her flash-fiction collection, There and Here, was longlisted in the Tarpaulin Sky Press 2020 Book Awards. Thea's work can be found in many journals. Find her writing at theaswanson.com.