poetry by katee fletcher

When the Crickets Chirp

There’s something scary about stillness.  Nights when air hangs and crickets choir so my eyes stay blinking while thinking about how I’ve never liked pizza crust or pickles  or the end of things like sandwich butts  or the kiss in romance movie finales  or waving goodbye from car windows  or funerals;

funerals where flowers wilt and mean condolences instead of summer  morning kitchen table brunches with daisies at the center of pancakes and orange juice.

One year I knew 6 people that died.

The year lingered; made me pray more over bowls of warm soup. I learned then  that not only turtles can shelter in shells and began wrapping myself in sweaters and blankets  for the winter when I grew scared  of stairs and bathtubs and listened to a lot  of Billy Joel’s

only the good die young

while thinking about how I continue to grow older.

As children, we drank milk to strengthen  our bones. We never thought about breaking them. We never thought about breaking then.

Katee's passion for writing and fascination for language has forever guided her path in life. During her undergraduate studies at Elon University, her poems “The Remnants” and “Where the Waves Break” were published in Colonnades Literary & Art Journal. Currently, she is based in the city of Boston while pursuing her MFA in poetry at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.