Baba’s Playground.

I assemble my legs, enfolding toes Indian style, at the same table I sat once before, dipping russet chocolate chip cookies into lukewarm coffee. I listen, to your voice of deprivation, the Serbian flag tattooed on your tongue-its stripes tickling your esophagus, rummaging Sto?  Sto? Y’s throwing me to the same ground- the same pathway to our Orthodox Church where a woman was abandoned, afraid, violated, 16. Your voice echoes into plastered walls Of ancient coral covered in memories-the same walls that gave me heritage, sending you down hallways, bickering my name, index and thumb grabbing my ear throwing me back inside to the same walls that peeled me into your identity, 19.

You spoke about momma becoming a nurse as I watched your tears form soft, supple footsteps leaving imprints on your cheek and squeals in your  voice, like the bleeding needle that pricked momma’s arm and once left her with disease, 32. And your daughter, my Tetka with her picture hanging above the same bed grandpa slept in-Benji lying cornered and restrained, surrounding the same stool with limbs braided, and the smell of Palacinke still burns on the stove. 

You continued to speak apprehensively, as I stared into your bedroom glaring into a sladak bleached beauty with breasts of a madman, skin tightened and sucked, nip-tucked nose, 48. My fists now clench into the same wrinkles around your eyes, forming a life of desolation-as I dip my last chocolate chip cookie into a wave of memories, like a six year-old child growing castles in a sandbox at 1101 Leisure Lane, 60. (RIP Baba, I will always love you.)