Two Poems by Hannah Grieco
It was not this
I write essays in psychiatric waiting rooms
I type and wait, I
rent these office spaces
while other parents stare at their phones
statue still.
Three kids is a lot of kids
my mother once told me, she
didn’t know their
breaths would be so labored
their hearts deep spaces hiding.
I once dreamed of a literary stage
but it was not a light-sleep anxiety tremble, it
was not this
this
this.
***
When You Leave Me
My secretly exquisite daughter,
Quietly sketching your story in page after page
Of disobedient, bold narration.
I miss you, simply that
A tiny tyrant flown.
Hannah Grieco is an advocate and writer in Arlington, VA. She can be found online at www.hgrieco.com, on Twitter at @writesloud, at Longleaf Review as a nonfiction reader, and at Barrelhouse Magazine as an assistant fiction editor.
We are able to publish these poems thanks to supporters of the Malarkey Books Writers Fund.