West Trade Review Online Exclusive: "growing up is like waiting for the sunrise on a cloudy day" by Aubrey Parke

Aubrey Parke

Aubrey Parke is an oral historian, writer, and manager of volunteers living in Pittsburgh, PA. In her free time, she likes to read, hike, camp, and eat chicken fried rice in bed.

growing up is like waiting for the sunrise on a cloudy day

at first, it is dark and I am afraid of veering off the road, of sudden curves, of glaring headlights.

I long for even the faintest glow on the horizon, like when I was six and my skull split

in a moment of eternal pain, but still my brain was speaking to my brain:

this will be brief

relief is when the sun breaks, cracking like an egg and spilling golden streaks

across the asphalt and the tops of Stop-N-Gos. and suddenly

this road is heavenly, is blessed

mist lies heavy in the valley, snagging in the branches like a child’s hair and drinking up the light.

when I was seven, I climbed these trees, afraid of heights and intoxicated with being

so far above the ground

a cloud-bridge stretches from one hill to the next, soft and solid so a fawn could take a step,

a colt could stride across this billowing path. all infant things

remember how to walk on air

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Image by Eugene Triguba from Unsplash