Emily Khym

sugar cookies and milk

Broken china plates filled in for the silent radio as
a fat orange cat rang the diner bell—scared but
desperate to survive. The single lamp glared
at it, trying to absorb the orange flash. As
I observed it jeté across the checkered floor, I
took a virtual snapshot of the helpless
shadow creeping up the register laden with
a slice of yesterday’s peach pie and drop of
my grandfather’s raspberry-lime jam.
In times like these, I take out my bittersweet
jar of sugar cookies and steamed milk, of
cold meatloaf and half finished orange juice to
remember the way you used to grab my hand and
sing me your sweet lullaby.
But I’m no magician who can add
more sand into the hourglass. I cry my
tears into the shells you collected from our
twenty two beach trips down the diner. It made
me realize that when we scrub all the sand and
sugar off of our skins, we become skeletons of
fireflies, losing ourselves in our own light.

Emily Khym is a 16-year-old junior attending The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. In her free time, when she is not writing, she enjoys listening to music, playing the flute, and going on long runs. She is currently preparing her writing portfolio for university and was recently accepted to Juniper, Sewanee, Kenyon and Iowa Young Writers Camp. Her poems have been published in Daphne, Inlandia, Elevation Review, Rigorous, and Elan literary magazines. Her favorite sweets are powdered raspberry donuts from Dunkin and gummy bears.