The Strip Mall At thirteen, on Friday night, when the boy who smoked at eleven met us near the strip mall plant sale with bags of mulch piled in rows, we ignored him when he made comments about the girls at school. When he raked his eyes over us, we crumbled into a pile of leaves. When he walked, we dampened and pushed down into the cement. Pretended not to hear when he spread that rumor so thin it was a fingerprint that we didn’t try to wipe away. When he called the cashier a slut, we let the word float out the door like a balloon. It rose up into the sky and kept going until we could no longer distinguish between bird and rubber. At night, when we were home in our own beds, we wondered how many balloons blanketed the sky. How many girls were witnesses? The adults in our lives would never catch all the ways we slunk down. They would miss the nights we came home different. And they would not get to see the way we sat frozen in the bouncy, worn seat at the back of the run-down theater as the boy who took us to the movies that night moved his hand up her leg. They wouldn’t be able to see how a middle school girl who doesn’t move is the stuffed head of a hunted animal. Nailed into the wall like a worn painting. Anyone who comes to visit is free to stare in awe and disgust, and no matter how many necklaces and hands are hung on her, she remains a piece of furniture. A party favor. She is the balloon and the sky and the blanket. She is all of these things, even when she doesn’t know who she is.
About the Author: Alexandria Tannenbaum is a poet and twice National Board Certified educator working outside of Chicago, Illinois. She is pursuing a poetry MFA from Lindenwood University. Her poems are published in the journals Bluepepper and Across The Margin. Her poem “ars poetica” will be published in the fall issue of The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.
Image Credit: John Margolies “Strip mall, Burlington, Iowa” (2003) Public domain image courtesy of the Library of Congress
As It Ought To Be 