A Map of My Childhood by Lulu Carrigan

by Mr. Phillipe
Posted on October 31, 2013October 30, 2013

Lulu Carrigan has a bachelor of arts in creative writing and three typewriters (two are broken). She has only been published, with a loose definition of the word, on her blog, luluthezulu.tumblr.com, or on twitter, @lulucarrigan. Talk to her about poetry, art, mopeds, music, people, places and things! More work by Lulu featured on IP.

A Map of My Childhood

A brush shaped like a bear.
A wooden bowl filled with
Shiny homemade bullets.
A deep green mug shaped
Like a barrel, rows of glass
Ball Jars, the kind we take
To the corner gas station
And for a quarter fill up with
Gas station coffee. Acrid and
Sweet. A splash of cheap milk.
The Gas Station.
The Cemetery.
The Church.
The Playground.
The Cornfields.
Four corners on two roads
Stretching away from each
Other. Forming a distance.
My mothers clothes. Plaid
Shirts, handmade vintage
dresses, Steel tipped boots.
My fathers clothes. Rat Fink
T-shirts, shorts in March,
Kitschy Hawaiian shirts.
Everything covered in paint.
Don’t talk to the cops. Ever.
This is where we keep the
Gun. Always keep your eyes
Open. This is how to build a
Fire. Remember everything.

Author: Mr. Phillipe

Phillipe Martin Chatelain / @uptownvoice / Phillipe is the Managing Editor of In Parentheses. He is a poet from New York City with a Masters Degree in Poetry from The New School. He writes as someone in the tradition of the urban troubadour or the flaneur–wandering, taking notes. He believes that poetry of our generation has taken on a much more digital definition. Furthermore, it is important for New Modernist writers like those exhibited in In Parentheses Literary Magazine to assume the forms of media available in order to carry on the history of Sublime Art. His series taking shots alone was self-published in 2012-2015. The self-published collection FACETS (2019) is now available. View all posts by Mr. Phillipe