Teen Sequins 2022: Taber Cannon, Age 17

                                       
Holes in the Popcorn Ceiling
 
You taught me how to stargaze,
             I was thirteen and felt
                          like an alien in my body, my limbs were
                                       too large to fit in the sleeves of your coat,
                                                    you guided my hand through the curve
of Scorpius’s tail under the watchful eyes of
                                                                    Andromeda. You told me I was the stars,
             my body the backdrop to the world.
                          Begging and pleading,
you brought me to Target, the fluorescent light
             a harsh reminder of what we were meant to be. You paid
the 11.99 in cash, let me hold
                          the dirty penny you got in exchange for the night sky.
                                       The stars looked so pretty on my ceiling,
                                                    you held me up, large hands protecting me
                          from the darkness.
             You left to answer the phone,
I climbed up onto the ladder myself,
             and fell
                          down
                                       and down
                                                    and down
until I was no longer the stars
                          I was just the floor.
             The stars on my ceiling matched
the stars you drew onto my cast,
                                       I carried the sky with me,
                                                    milky bone sown with speckles of you.
​

                             
Taber Cannon is a Manhattan based writer, whose work is upcoming in Eunoia Review and has
​ been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. When not writing, Taber
spends the majority of the time listening to Florence + the Machine
​ and longing for a pet grizzly bear.