by Michele Thorpe

At five years old I had one new tooth.
Late at night, through a cracked door knob,
I heard my mother whisper in her little phone booth.
This booth was nothing but one raggedy chair.
I wouldn’t sit in it, I didn’t dare.
My mother sat there, playing with her long black hair,
Looking through the crack, listening closely.
When the gossip was good, she would just stare.
She’d never seen a tear; her cries were rare.
But she harbored family secrets so deep,
They wouldn’t fit in her steepest layer.
My mother always stared at this chair nervously,
acting like she doesn’t have a care.
In her phone booth, she was the queen of denial;
The truth was her kryptonite, her eternal slayer.

Michele Thorpe is a New York City native and is enjoying her Senior year as an undergraduate at the NYU School of Professional Studies Division of Applied Undergraduate Studies. Thorpe’s interests range from learning about all aspects of history, Italian language studies, green sustainability, and media to watching early 20th century silent films. She is also an avid ultra-marathon runner and enjoys Duathlon competitions. Her writing is greatly influenced by visual experiences and sound bites of conversations while race training around New York City. She watches people walking on the street as their movements, their styles, and their facial expressions tell stories.