Poetry By Jennifer Small

--Zahn CC




Paper Boat

There was a girl I used to be.
I never got to tell her goodbye.

She slipped out of my body
somewhere between heartbreak
and motherhood—​
quiet as breath leaving a mirror.

She left her favorite sweater
on the back of a chair.
One sleeve still reaching
for a shoulder that never came back.

​She was beautiful and playful.
Brave and naïve.

She believed wanting more
was not a flaw.

She believed love would stay
if she held it carefully enough.

She was not foolish.

She was unfinished.

Sometimes
I stand in rooms made of grown-up decisions—​
paperwork, prescriptions, calendars—  
and try on my old laugh.

But it slips
like a coin down a drain,
bright for a second,
then gone
in a sound too small to fight.

If I close my eyes,
I can still hear her
dancing in the kitchen,
singing like she believed
the world would listen.

And maybe
the world did.

Maybe it was me
who stopped.

I never got to tell her goodbye.

So tonight
I will fold a paper boat
and set it in the sink-
​
tiny,
stubborn,
afloat-

not to send her away,
but to watch what refuses to sink.

​And I will tell her out loud
that I am still here.

That I am learning
how to make room.

That I am building a life
where she does not have to disappear
in order for me to survive.

I am not trying
to go back.

I am trying
to bring her home.
​



Jennifer Small is a poet and writer whose work explores identity, memory, womanhood, and the quiet transformations that shape a life. She is the author of the poetry collection Still Again: a collection of me and is currently at work on a second collection, Those Who Touch Fire. She lives in North Carolina.  



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