POEM: A Little Bright Blue Thing Winks Back 💙

The little blue car
still winks at me
from the lot up the road.

Not because it knows me.
Not because fate arranged it.

Just sunlight perhaps,
catching chrome
at the right hour.

Still—

something inside me lifts.

The garden lettuce
did not solve my life.

Nor the radishes.

Nor the cat in the gazebo
washing one white paw
while the planes droned softly overhead.

Yet there I was,

fed.

I remember a junior dance.

My first dance.

My first date.

A crystal heart necklace.
A wrist corsage.
“In Your Eyes.”

I hadn’t seen the movie yet.
I had not learned longing that way.

That was an older woman’s idea.

I loved my winking blue dress.
I loved the winking crystal necklace.
I loved the movement and the moment.

But more than that—

I loved
in that moment.

Still open. Still warm.

I was not completed.
Not rescued.
Not finally understood.

Still—

somewhere inside her

the little baby

with blue eyes.

I see her now
and wish I could have held her better.

Just be alive.
Stay alive.

And perhaps
that is the beginning again.

Not grandeur.
Not becoming untouchable.
Not winning the narratives.

Just this:

a woman learning
to sit beside herself,

letting go
of misunderstanding,
of endless explanation,
of abandonment disguised as love.

A warm cup
between her hands.

A warm heart
in her breast.

Mint in water.
Dirt beneath fingernails.

Her children becoming themselves
through shafts of afternoon light and dark.

And somewhere beneath
all the grief
and wanting
and unfinished longing—

the years.

A small bright thing
still opening its eyes
each morning,

saying,

Look.

The world
still winks back. 🌿

Because the night
winks back
with little blue stars.

Because—

it belongs to me
once again.