CAITLIN JOHNSON | TWO POEMS

October 6, 2024

Diorama of a Life I Never Lived

I recollect it like a grade school photograph
of a cousin I never knew—unfamiliar
but I miss them somehow anyway.
How are they doing, this gap-toothed kid
with unfortunate bangs that I keep
pressed in the pages of my teen bible?
How do we keep going, even when
everything around us, all of it falls away
like the honey-slow grief of autumn? 
Is this world mine? A whole life looms like
unlikely mountains in the rearview
of a girl who only ever knew the Delta-flat
honesty of the horizon looped around me
like a lasso approaching zero.
I keep mistaking myself for storm clouds.
The strip mall dance club karaoke diner
of lives, one lived over and over
and never learned a damn thing
other than the death of my god.
Maybe I could live it, I hope, in a way
that relieves it of its tenacity, the lingering
scent of old lavender— the hope
for a softer, less regretful dinner.

How I Got Rid of My Mississippi Accent

I was born and raised
on the brink of language,
the way the Mississippi sun
stretches words with heat
and the need to hear god.
Every syllable licks back
at the ones that came first,
the mamaw-soft need
to touch shoulders, sound
like a lady, feel real. I never
heard myself until Joanne H.
said I sounded like
“hillbilly trash.” Monstrous
in this new chromatic millennia
that would never ever ever
kiss a mouth that sounded
like roadside cotton.
Myself barefoot on the bank
of our dirty bayou, alone.
I left my mothers who wanted
me busy in the kitchen
of my own creation. Tethered
to the crude assumptions
I made to soften my own
exit— what does Mamaw
have to do with Me, now
in this mega-mall, hopeless
in a bedazzled sweatshirt
unsure of what woman
I was meant to be?
Delta-flat Mississippi
finds me in the rearview,
and I keep tonguing Home
like almond in my teeth,
chewed up beyond itself,
familiar and bitter.

Originally from the American Deep South and now hanging on for dear life in Ridgewood Queens, Caitlin Annette Johnson is a nonbinary poet, novelist, and artist with a BA in Literature from the University of Houston and an MFA in Creative Writing from Syracuse University. She’s currently working on her first full-length poetry manuscript, Empress in Reverse, which explores navigating motherhood divested of traditional gender norms and the process of excavating oneself as a spiritual experience. Although she’s currently a stay-at-home mom, Johnson channels her creative energy into teaching free writing workshops in her community, where she helps others find their voice—or at least an epic anecdote to share at parties. At home, Johnson juggles the chaos of writing, raising a kid, a dog, and a surprisingly resilient collection of houseplants that refuse to give up, much like their mother. Her art and published work can be found at caitlinannettejohnson.com.