Hummingbird Heart

Upcoming in the 2025 Issue of The Rush Literary Magazine

I did not like to be held as a child

trapped in any adult's lap. Their arms

constricting, every fidget of my body. Nowhere

for my head to go, except the shallow

blanket of flesh and bone cradling their

hummingbird heart.

It beat

like a windstorm.

It shifted

And could gush like molasses

or spit like lighting

and no matter what

I could not move

just lay there eyes wide open,

feeling everything a child shouldn’t

It did not mean I did not love them.

I just hated thinking, that’s all kids were for

I loved to be out in the backyard more

Just beyond the garden, lived a tree line

I was tiny yet, curious enough to crawl and find

a little hollow place inside where the branches ended

and an oasis created itself

I’d lay there, no less small, but feeling very big

I’d breathe it all back into the earth

until my hummingbird heart quit

pounding like a sugar rush

Until all movement slowed

and the fidgets could be free

I could dissolve back into myself

just me, just there, just to be

with my own hand

on my own hummingbird heart

only alone, did it ever feel

like it belonged entirely to me