Poetry:

What’s in Her Bag?

By: Madison Gryzwacz

Half used lipgloss, and stray gum wrappers
a brush with strands she’ll never meet
Again, still tangled from last time it was used

A phone that pings but never sings,
a charger cord in tangles and knots
receipts from stores and straws from fast food

a wallet holding nothing more than a overdrawn credit card

perfume, a travel size,
for carrying her restless scent.
She’s got dry shampoo to disguise
the restless nights on end.

Mascara smudged, a bobby pin,
a tampon crushed beneath keys.
Some more gum, a safety pin
the battle wounds being hidden

Then she carries the things no one is meant to see
the fear she’s learned, tight, silent, cold,
and tucked away discreetly.

An instinct sharp as shattered glass,
to scan the street, to fake a smile.

A memory wrapped in tissue thin,
a laugh she left in someone’s head.
A name she speaks only within
the quiet chambers of her mind.

The love yes, love filled bruised and small,
folded like notes she’ll never send.
hidden like a message floating in the sea.

Her bag is heavy, not with things,
but with the weight of being her.
the life no one will quite infer.

So when she zips it up again,
walks away.
you’ll never know the what, the when,
of the hidden ghosts she carries every day.

Author Bio:

Madison Grzywacz is a poet and a junior at La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Indiana.

She is a poet who is born in Laporte but lives in new buffalo Michigan. She started writing poetry in 5th grade which was inspired by one of her teachers, and since then has taken on a poetry workshop class at La Lumiere.