Your Face

A Poem by Livia Rose

I see your face in my dreams every night. It doesn't always look like you, but all the same, I'd recognize you anywhere.

Sometimes you are yourself. Dark hair and bright eyes and soft fingertips and a smile permanently on your face.

Sometimes you're the ambitious little girl who lives down the street from me, always selling lemonade, but never making quota.

Sometimes you're a monarch butterfly, in-your-face-orange striped with black, fluttering over my head, and mingling with the clouds.

Sometimes you're my grandmother, holding a soup spoon to my mouth, and telling me to get some meat on my bones.

Sometimes you're the fat little boy I babysit on Sundays, eating as much cake as your amble belly can hold because it's your birthday, and you can.

Sometimes you're a Halloween jack-o-lantern, wide, gaping smile, and flickering candle lighting up your carved-out insides.

Sometimes you're an abandoned game of hopscotch, chalk smudged by countless walking feet, marking stones discarded on the sidewalk.

Sometimes you're a monster, rotting face falling apart like a leper's, strong fingers with their broken nails stretching toward my throat.

Sometimes you're your father, his stern face an aged version of yours, impatient that your work is being interrupted by something as trivial as a skinned knee.

Sometimes you're a toy boat, drifting on the water, battling with mallard ducks and currents.

And sometimes you're me. Your hair is lighter and longer, and your eyes are bigger and more hesitant, and when I look at your face, I see mine reflected back.