Lessons I Will Try to Teach You

You, son,
It’s time you learned.
We are made halved by the things we love:
Open pieces and broken fragments
Shining in the cold rarity of the mind.
When you are split down the middle
You will spool out and stretch into bundles
Braided into the plaits of your hair–
Until it will all fall away.

You, son,
You December
Pulsing into the lamplighter’s evenings,
Red clouds smoldering in dusk’s blue horizon.
When you fall over the tensed shoulders of the mountains
There is no getting up.
You are not the sun.
When you watch the morning unsheathe herself from the night,
You will murmur your undoings
Like the melody of a drum beat.
Like all the senseless mortal murmurings before.

Still, I can’t describe the taste to one so young,
So I will say that it will taste like metal,
Like a jar of nickels–
You know,
The ones grandpa stored on his shelves
And paid you to slip into sleeves.
Remember those mornings,
Your small hands all skinfolds and blueberry jam,
Shaking the coins across the rug?
I wish I had the strength to tell you it would taste like
Gunpowder, like the frozen stare of a deer up a cocked rifle.
But you will know one day.
You will.

By Sophia Rose Smith

Biography:

Sophia Rose Smith is the People Editor for her highschool’s newspaper and founder of Binsey Poplar Press. When she’s not writing, she practices calligraphy and volunteers. Her writing is forthcoming in or has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Blue Marble Review, The Daphne Review, and Schola Cantorum’s poetry-to-music contest.