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Blue Marble Review

Literary Journal for Young Writers

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Storytelling

By Vivian Tsai

We hunt for treasure chests; we chase

the tails of Flopsy, Mopsy; race

through sprinklers tipsy-topsy-tall

till bedtime falls upon it all.

We conquer garden gnome by gnome

and crown the carrot patches Rome.

I was the sidekick, you the sage

to fairly rule our Golden Age.

And then, in autumn, comes the bus

concocting fumes with spit and fuss.

You shift your backpack, say goodbye;

I sit along the curb and sigh.

I count sheep while I wait, then roam,

then skip rope till the cows come home;

I wander through our garden-realm

and wonder how to take the helm—

then stumble, see a gnome or three,

our pinkie-sworn-off enemy,

but still I sit, begin to talk

and tell our old jokes, knock by knock.

And soon these knocks evolve to tales

of ventures new, with ships and sails,

Venetian boats: vessels to tell

the loneliness I now know well.

And as you vanish, day by day

I learn to spin the sad away.

See, here’s the thing: when you took flight

I first began to learn to write.

 

Vivian Tsai currently studies computer science and applied math at Johns Hopkins University. She spends her free time doodling, writing letters, and playing tennis with friends.

 

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Issue Three/Fall

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