tanya ranta

the burdens of adulthood

There are days when she sits around the house
with only the sunlight through curtains as her backdrop
the stillness of an empty house heightens the sounds around her
cars that rush by too quickly for a residential area
the wind chime that taps the window of the living room on a breezy day
heat moving through pipes and crackling in baseboards

She closes her eyes and thinks back to days
when she played by herself on narrow steps
a small window lit the pantry where she'd sit
with her imaginary friends and play
a tiny outcast from the playground
her melancholy was bred from age six
but the heat from the sun kept her warm
and the friends in her head never left

She would curl up in front of that pantry
and nap like a contented puppy
knowing that only the world in her head mattered

The burdens of adulthood only breeds more insecurity
as she looks to retreat to her imaginary world
and finds nothing to comfort her


Tanya Ranta is a teacher and poet living in New Jersey. Her poems have appeared online at Children, Churches and Daddies, Thick With Conviction, True Poet Magazine and others. She is working on her second chapbook, which is due out later this year.