Melanie waved at the reporter when he stepped into the coffee shop. Sipping her jasmine tea, she took in his lean frame. He looked so much younger, unmasked. "Thank you again for speaking with ... [+]
Hannah Hayden is a student at Brigham Young University. She is studying Speech Language Pathology and Mandarin, Chinese. She loves hiking, yoga, and microwave meals. "Permission to Be Human" was a finalist of Short Édition's Long Story Short Award, 2020.
When I woke up gravity was gone.
I floated to the kitchen, blender uncapped
my smoothie entered the air
and I sucked it from the ceiling with a straw.
I floated to work, waving to my grandma. She crawls after her drifting dentures.
When I woke up sadness had left.
The sky was very blue and static, like sea glass electrified and dyed.
A sun burnt my freckles and I reach for a runaway sunscreen stick.
A baby is born and I float by.
My grandma is gone and I move on, toward work, past vacant baseball fields.
What if when I wake there is gravity, there will be baseball, olympics, rock climbing, running, trampoline jumping.
Tree climbing, easter egg dying, pancake flipping and nacho chip dipping, deep water plunging, squat thrusts and lunging,
dolphins stitching the horizon add a sun rising.
And what do we have?
This dude,
this guy,
the sky, its falling, chicken little-ing,
my altitude less belittling.
What if when I wake there is sadness?
I will laugh at my bed head and cry at my neighbor's kind post-it note posted on my front door door posts.
I will write a song to a siren that tops billboardtop100.
The sky, rigid, will soften and drip like a melting clock and wrap me with wisdom.
Asleep on the sad sand, slap to the face and I am awake.
A pin drops and with that I am launched into the atmosphere, there I go.
The earth shrinking below me,
with only the songs of poor Pluto
giving me permission to be human, accompanying me in the space between gravity and sadness.
I floated to the kitchen, blender uncapped
my smoothie entered the air
and I sucked it from the ceiling with a straw.
I floated to work, waving to my grandma. She crawls after her drifting dentures.
When I woke up sadness had left.
The sky was very blue and static, like sea glass electrified and dyed.
A sun burnt my freckles and I reach for a runaway sunscreen stick.
A baby is born and I float by.
My grandma is gone and I move on, toward work, past vacant baseball fields.
What if when I wake there is gravity, there will be baseball, olympics, rock climbing, running, trampoline jumping.
Tree climbing, easter egg dying, pancake flipping and nacho chip dipping, deep water plunging, squat thrusts and lunging,
dolphins stitching the horizon add a sun rising.
And what do we have?
This dude,
this guy,
the sky, its falling, chicken little-ing,
my altitude less belittling.
What if when I wake there is sadness?
I will laugh at my bed head and cry at my neighbor's kind post-it note posted on my front door door posts.
I will write a song to a siren that tops billboardtop100.
The sky, rigid, will soften and drip like a melting clock and wrap me with wisdom.
Asleep on the sad sand, slap to the face and I am awake.
A pin drops and with that I am launched into the atmosphere, there I go.
The earth shrinking below me,
with only the songs of poor Pluto
giving me permission to be human, accompanying me in the space between gravity and sadness.