Vernix

By Presley Pendergrass

I cower still,
In the light
Of a sun
I’ve yet to
Meet.

I run naked through
The storm-kissed streets
In the light of morning,

Like a long-legged baby
Still wet with vernix
After escaping something
I regret running from—

And I weep
For everything I cannot yet see.
Because I know it is already hurting.

When the streetlights come on.
Where nobody can see me.
Where nobody can hear me.

In an invisible city.
With other people who, like me, occasionally dabble in invisibility.

One eye weeps like there isn’t one next to it weeping along with it.

And when I am a few months out on my own,
I will stand as a scarecrow in a field with other scarecrows,
and watch as the crows peck at our eyes and drop feces our shoulders—
a field of scarecrows just like me.

Presley Pendergrass (he/him) is a teen writer and poet from Texas. He spends his days writing poems and stories alone in his room with his cat. He enjoyed books from an early age and is inspired by writers and poets such as Sylvia Plath, Ocean Vuong, Emily Dickinson, and Toni Morrison. He has written and self published two collections of poetry titled The Sun Fell With Them and Forest Fire.