Julie Dickson

Fine, not fine

How much is there to give
when I receive even less –
no blood left in this stone

When I am alone, untended,
I think of times when I sat
reading a book for hours

when I had not many worries,
I was careful then, not to provoke
father’s anger or even awareness

Now that I am independent,
I am my own caretaker
There is no one else here

no one like my mother
when she asked how I was
and I lied and said I was fine

 

Julie A. Dickson has been writing poetry since her early teens on topics of bullying, abandonment, animal in human rights, nature, and environment. Her work appears in various journals, including Ekphrastic Review, Masticadores USA, Blue Heron and Misfit, among others. Dickson holds a BPS and behavioral science, and has served as a guest editor and on two poetry boards.