Poetry By Maria Connour

Chris Bee CC



Prayer for the Health of a Child

My older brother is expecting a baby.
So why am I being so mean?
The baby is coming in April, 
But it doesn’t matter to me. 
My mother is disappointed in me, 
She says I am being rude.
Rude to my brother, rude to his wife,
I am being very bitter and I don’t totally know why. 
My little brother does not mind that his older brother is having a baby.
So why does it bother me so much?
No, mom, I don’t want to see the ultrasounds, I don’t care if you think they're cute.
My older brother cannot take care of himself, I think, and neither can his wife.
A baby is a new human being. 
They will not be able to take care of a new human being. 
I am the only one who seems to be upset about this.
My older brother is having a baby.
So why am I being so mean?
If a baby is born and my brother is old enough to be a parent, I am really old too. 
My mother will be a grandmother which means she is closer to death.
I don’t want her to ever die.
My mother will pay a lot of attention to this baby. 
Which means she will pay less attention to me.
I still need her attention!
I feel like my clothes are too small. 
I will not get rid of them.
Maybe if I keep wearing them, my childhood will be not yet gone.
If this baby is born and my jeans are too small then my childhood is over and it sucked. 
Why didn’t I get one like everyone else did? 
Why now, is this baby going to get a good childhood, the one I didn’t have?  
I want a new childhood.
I want a do over.
I had a dream that my brother’s wife miscarried and it was my fault. 
I guess I hope this baby has a better childhood than mine. 
I guess I hope this baby is happy and healthy.
God, please let this baby be healthy. 

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When I Get Like This

I cannot describe the ache I get when I think of this.
When I get like this, I want to take off all my clothes.
I want to lay on the floor. 
I want to start with my face and dig my nails into my cheeks.
From there, I pull downwards, ripping my skin off.
I continue, carnally tearing every inch of my flesh off of me.
I feel the need to rid myself of me. 
When I have no skin left, I go for my organs.
I dig my fingers into them all and crush them like pomegranates,
Except for my heart, which I take a bite out of. 
I need to know what is in my heart. 
The blood seeps down my chin.
I take my bones and whittle them into knives, with which I stab my eyes out, Oedipus style.
There is nothing I want to see anyway.
That is what the ache feels like.
In actuality, I will shower, multiple times a day, in an effort to scrub all of myself off of myself. 
This is what it feels like when I get like this.

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Little Brother

When I am four my brother is born and I do not care except for how it will affect me. 
To a child unaware of the worlds wonders, 
A baby boy born is just a nuisance.
When I am eight, my brother is four. 
Watch your brother mother says.
Am I my brother's keeper? I ask the one in charge.
When I am not watching, 
My brother rides his bike downhill and crashes.
This is the first time I remember empathy. 
When I am twelve, my brother is eight.
He is wild, untameable, eager to climb, prone to fall. 
When my mother leaves a candle on the table watch your brother she says to me.
When he gets burnt, there is no one to blame but myself.
When I am four my brother is born and in what is one of the first habits of 
Undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive,
I get out of bed to watch him sleep.
I watch to make sure he’s breathing.
I get up how many times in the middle of the night to make sure.
The ups and downs, the ins and outs, the exhales and inhales.
During the day, I am reckless, juvenile, and unassuming to this tiny human being,
But at night I watch to make sure he is still breathing.
While he sleeps, I am able to see how vulnerable, glass, and china he is.
He is so small.

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Maria Connour is a fourth year student at Ohio Northern University who is double majoring in both English Literature and Studio Arts. She works as the fiction editor for the Ohio Northern Literary Magazine, Polaris, which she had a short story published in her sophomore year. She also has had a poem published for Girls Right the World. She finds most of her inspiration writing about her two brothers and through studying religion, as she was raised in a Catholic home and attended a Catholic school for nine years.