Hannah Cajandig-Taylor

We lived in a pale blue dollhouse with three stories & a basement. Obsessed over hot air balloons & weather blimps. Collected snowglobes & birdcages & convinced our giant neighbors to order countless pizzas by jumping on the remote buttons until a commercial with extra-large pepperoni flashed across their TV screen. Until we snuck enough triangular pizza box tables to furnish the place. Grew make-believe green beans & perennials on the roof. Protected our cardboard porch with Venus flytraps. A drawbridge. Toothpick mailbox. The works. Repainted our plastic appliances with glittering silver nail polish. Sharpie’d our heights on the wall, our grip clenched tight as we struggled to lift the permanent marker, shoes digging into the ground. Took three of us just to carry the marker back to the attic. Summer came. We were placed in the untamed backyard. When the crows moved in, our sky tarred & feathered, all we could think was to close our lopsided windows & send hope to our neighbors with chocolate coins in gold foil & tooth fairy kisses & after the birds abandoned our balcony view, the blue became a smiling child in a turquoise t-shirt, cutting little blankets from a washcloth to leave beside our front door.