Poetry By Karen Crawford

Rob Glover CC



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Wake Up

​the little girl drifts between the sofa and a coffee table littered with beer /  drinking the dregs from each bottle / her baby-doll face caked in makeup / her mama’s streaked with mascara / wake up the little girl says in a sing-song voice / her mama face-down on the couch / lipstick staining a threadbare cushion / the little girl tiptoes into the kitchen / drags a chair to the cupboard / reaches for the cookie jar / she teeters / dizzy / slips / ass planted on the floor / wake up, wake up she stammers / wipes the sting from her eyes / eats until her fingers are sticky with crumbs / the little girl twirls faster and faster in her tinker bell dress on a fairytale high / waving her magical wand / poof! she proclaims like she does when her mama is lonely / does her mama know the little girl likes when she’s lonely? / that sometimes when she has visitors–they visit her too / the little girl shivers / wake up / the toilet flushes / wake up / she tucks in behind Mama / wake up / the floorboards creak / wake up, wake up, wake up



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Karen Crawford is a writer with Puerto Rican roots and lives in the city of Angels. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was included in Wigleaf's Top 50 Longlist 2022. Her work has appeared in Bending Genres, Emerge Literary Journal, Cheap Pop, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere. You can find her on twitter @KarenCrawford_ and BlueSky @karenc.bsky.social