SELFISH GIRL
By Suze Kay
When I was five the world was good
and mortgages flowed like water. Didn’t matter
to me: I hadn’t yet learned to fear the bursting
of bubbles in slow stories told by graphs, but
I would. Still, I welted under a cinched-belt
budget even then. Under my feet, my father
debugged code in the basement while I loafed
and watched the TV flicker. I saw stars
lose their shit and shave their heads and I
laughed. Planes hit towers again and again
like a stuck cassette. Men beheaded men, tanks
rolled into cities. All of it was distant. None
of it mattered much to me. Oh, ignorant ecstasy
of childhood: to hear the father of a friend
was found in his garage and not hear the rumble
of his exhaust pipe. To cry at the funeral
only because my heels were bleeding in their patent
leather prisons. My father only ever spanked me
once, when I kicked him three times in a row.
You’re not the only one who feels, he told me.
Suze Kay (she/her) is a pastry chef in New Jersey. Her poetry is published in trampset, HAD, BRAWL Lit, and more. She’s happy you found her here and invites you to find more of her work on her website.
Artwork Source: “Matrilineal” by D.W. Baker.
Artist Statement: This piece aims to reflect the complex intersection of technology, family relationships, and the natural world in 2025.
D.W. Baker (he/him) is a poet and father from St. Petersburg, Florida. His poems appear in Washington Square Review, ballast, Identity Theory, and many more, while his criticism appears in Philly Poetry Chapbook Review and Paraselene, among others. He reads for several mastheads including Variant Lit and Libre. See more of his work at www.dwbakerpoetry.com
The Turning Leaf Journal 