Yes, I am a late bloomer and I will bloom later than everyone else – that is a threat!
In my youth, I drank milk twice a day everyday, pure abstracted cow.
No one knew me.
I cut my teeth and for good measure I cut my knees tumbling down the alley.
A piece of glass got caught in there, had to be extracted,
and it HAS come back to haunt me.
Later, the tears I shed biking home in the rain through my twenties,
pooled their tips and flooded every sidewalk crack in the neighborhood.
Don’t worry! I’m a very good swimmer,
and there is a very large lake for them to run into.
I once made a latte so good it peeled off my crush’s eyelashes
and made a wish on each one.
The first was for them to grow back new eyelashes – which they did.
For a spell I became a most beautiful wallflower –
It was really worth the trip to see what she’d done with the place.
In time, I’ll knit socks for every foot in a square mile,
but today I’ll be just in time for dinner.
The performance tonight will be a first and a last –
You’ll really just have to be here.
Emma Casey is a lifelong resident of Chicago’s north side. She holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and has been writing and performing in Chicago for nearly a decade as a member of the ShowParty! ensemble, a featured performer at Salonathon and the Fly Honey Show, and in many other ephemeral queer rooms. She is a member of Khecari dance company’s BYOboard, volunteer in the Field Museum’s Bird Collection, a fiber artist and zine maker.