JAMIE FIORE HIGGINS - POEMS

Jamie Fiore Higgins has a thirst to experience life fully and a never-give-up attitude. After graduation from Bryn Mawr with a Mathematics degree, Jamie began an 18 year career at Goldman Sachs, rising through the ranks to become a Managing Director. After having her fourth child (and plenty of #metoo moments) she is now in the trenches of potty training, school pickups and the PTA and writing about her experiences as a mother and woman on Wall Street.

​A Lifeline of Love

​I’m outdated cream wallpaper
Dirty and dingy
Covered with smudges and fingerprints and stains
I wish I were artsy
I wish I were deep
But I’m a simpleton
My head is crammed with deep formed thoughts
Rocket ships ready to burst into the sky
I need to let them out, let them breath, let them sing
But I can’t when I shackled to the sink in front of a pile of dirty dishes
I need help
Just a boost of understanding and acceptance
A lifeline of love
To hold me tight and squeeze
To push out the ugly thoughts and push in tenderness
To suck out the wickedness and breathe in peace
Just let me simmer in it
Have my skin sop it in like a dish sponge
And make it a part of me

​Blood and Popcorn 

 I shouldn’t pay attention to the Windex and Lysol tears that fall out from my eyes.    They collect in a coffee cup filled with cow dung that smells like my grandma’s home rain.            
My hands are Brillo pads, my hair is a mop head, and my feet are Dustbusters as                                            
I swim through the red sand streets looking.
 
Dark time untethers me from the quakes that shake my chest.                                     
I must shine and shimmer but instead I’m drenched with brittle and bitter causation.                                     
I must get away from myself, from my mind that tells me and shows me that I’m nothing.                           
I want to shut that voice down in my head, chuck it out and stomp it to bits.
 
I want to crack and crush the crude worms that crawl in my brain and mate and multiply                          
So that they come out of my nose sparkling with glitter.   My head explodes leaving an empty hole.  Rubber ducks and floss picks and bouncy balls fall onto the ocean floor.                                                              
 
I pray I was meant to be a mother, even though I needed a biologist to get it done.                        
That chamber was tight and twisted and plugged up and splintered with rocks and dust.                       
So dark and dank I’d cringe and purge myself out of there, too.                                                              
But I couldn’t be told no.
 
I told the universe they were wrong, and I pushed my way into the motherhood club.                             
Maybe the universe was right and I’m not motherhood material.                                      Shame on me for thwarting the master plan, for I’ve screwed up. 
My body burns as they throw blood and popcorn at me, their laughs and smoke shake my ship.
 
It’s a crude way to go, I took a cheap shot with my life and I came up short.                  No pill that I can choke down can stop my flight to the sun as I cough and choke on my fizzled-out life.  Bitterness wraps around my neck like a noose, enticing and convincing me to a crackling bitter death.  That’s the end isn’t it.  My life is half over. 
 
I’ve lived long but made a wretched stank of a mess, drenched and smeared with black ignorance. With bitter hatred, shattering and splintering kind spirits lurching toward the light.  And I’ll be trapped in a plastic bag of fertilizer as I’m shaken over the garden with nothing to do  But melt and pray that a flower springs forth.
 
I have decades more to live but scared to bits if I don’t.                                                      What if my last days were spent picking up broken legos off the floor, 
On blistered knuckles covered with dust and vomit and piss, twisted
​ As I slither and shake my diminished life with a lint brush.

​Explode to Dust

​I’m crumbling and my stones are dried up.
I want a club to fly me to the garbage can.
 
I’m feeling more alert now as the kids play.
I remind myself that four is okay.
 
I can catch my breath, kick up my feet and
scratch my writing itch. I’m on a cloud, like a dog
 
with snakes coming out of its mouth.
I carve the pulp and discover a chest of balloons.
 
I take a full breath, a deep breath, a breath of crisp
late spring air into my lungs. Down it goes.
 
I’m writing. I’m doing. I’m as good as what I do.
If I stop swimming I’ll die, so they say.
 
Find the passion. Find the meaning. Find the energy.
I’m a cube made of glass. Stop the flood
 
of birds before the snails come. That’s the way.
Writing takes me along as the days pass.
 
I need to keep finding time now that summer is coming.
Warm days, fragrant with forever.
 
In a blink of an eye it will be over. Good times
pass quickly. I want to stop time. Seize the moment.
 
Love the moment. Be in the moment. Be happy here.
Be happy now. Be happy. I’m always waiting
 
for things to get better. I’m unsuccessful.
Now seems so bad. I need to lose the heaviness.
 
Put it down, eat some air, shrink on a cloud.
I’m a pebble, rain down on the bed, and then explode to dust.