Sweet as Candy: A Novel in Verse

Independence

It’s just beginning to get dark

When we finally get around to eating dinner.

We continue to talk and laugh as the evening goes on

Fireworks lighting up the sky and our smiling faces

As we function like a normal American family.

Izzy is not the poor young woman who got saddled with her crazy stepsister’s baggage.

Alex is not her smitten boyfriend who’s stuck waiting for her to commit.

I am not the troubled foster kid who is secretly knocked up.

For now, we’re three nameless, carefree people

Our neighbors too preoccupied with their own celebrations

To judge us as we carry on with ours.

Reveling in this fact

I give myself the permission to indulge for once

Taking two loaded hotdogs

Several helpings of potato salad

And a huge chocolate cupcake.

Enclosed in our perfect white picket fence

We eat, drink, and are merry.

For the first time in weeks

My existence is not consumed by worry.