Growing Pain

Do you remember the time we ran in the fields behind our house

Carved our names into trees and trampled in the grass 

Threw our hats in the air and watched them glide by the rims

They would fly over our little white house and get caught in the chimney 

Our dad had to use this humongous ladder to retrieve them

(The wind stole them of course, that’s what we used to tell him)

I remember the way his eyes would crinkle into crescent moons

As he threw our hats down to us, silently shaking his head

(I saw the smile though; I heard the sound of stars that poured from his mouth)

We would take the dirt-stained hats and skip along the path

Under the relentless waves of heat that the sun rained down upon us

Until the moon came out and bathed us in subtle, swollen light  

Twice I heard the wolf’s cry, a reckoning, and we strayed from the path

Sand in our shoes and wood in our palms, you called them growing pains

Upon silent hours, we stumbled into a clearing, a foreign familiar 

I caught a glimpse of our house and turned my head, motioning the way

(Little did I know that you had already left, gone places without me)

The wind took my hat, already torn to shreds, and flung it to the top window 

The hat stayed, and I eventually forgot about it 

Dad was gone, and so were you

Author's Note

This work has been published on The Weight Journal 2022. https://www.theweightjournal.com/post/growing-pains-poetry-by-hannah-zhang

Reviews

[Writergurl]

I remember the way his eyes would crinkle into crescent moons
As he threw our hats down to us, silently shaking his head
(I saw the smile though; I heard the sound of stars that poured from his mouth)

Love this part, such vivid imagery in this write, nicely written.
Very descriptive.