During the hungry years,
your father walking you deep
into the forest to abandon you
is not the worst thing
you might experience.
At least in surviving hidden paths
and cannibal witches
you find a sense of power
if not purpose, realize
sometimes the sole recourse
lies in grasping fate
in both hands until
your knuckles turn into
pale pebbles beneath your skin.
Some children keep the roof
and the gruel, yet lose
their souls to the slow grind
of demands. My body
never went hungry, but my mind
craved belonging on one side
and freedom to be myself
on the other, not a mere echo
of who Mother wished me to be,
my identity subsumed into
the chaos of her mind.
She will never understand
what she did; forget apologies,
I tell myself, and choose
these shattered bits cobbled
into an awkward being, me
as a refutation, an argument
I never before felt I could win.
| Shy and nocturnal, Jennifer Crow has never been photographed in the wild, but it’s rumored that she lives near a waterfall in western New York. Her work has appeared in a number of print and electronic venues, including Uncanny Magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Wondrous Real, and Analog Science Fiction. Her short poem, “Harold and the Blood-Red Crayon,” was a co-winner of the 2023 Rhysling award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Curious readers can catch up with her on Bluesky @writerjencrow.bsky.social. |  |