Notes Left Under the Map

somewhere in the apex of my developing mind, the smell of pine sol wraps my childhood in a familiar blanket. with memories still lulling a young body to rest shut your eyes, we are almost done. unless you too have sacrificed your body to the part of day where the sun no longer anchors itself to the safety of the shore you will not know that at this late in the night the clocks stop trying to devour seconds and the fade of the burning sky masks our brown faces from the shame that i let die when i could not reach the top of the broom. but being a janitor is not a job, says Brittany releasing her scrunched button nose twiddling with her blonde pigtails and judging me with her faded auburn freckles. i tell her that they remind of the constellations i etched in the sky the night before following my finger up the big dipper on her cheeks and orion's belt on her nose it was just as i saw it on the ride home from cleaning the school i also happened to attended but i mean anything to make ends meet, right? we were a family with only fraying wired ends trying to make them spark new beginnings. when you are the janitor’s daughter, you feel most comforted when capturing the reminisce of the streets lamps romantic glow. how it illuminates the faces of its most dilligent workers even after the world falls asleep. everything is so much more alive at this hour watching the fluorescent gleam bleed on the sidewalks as the ground rumbles underneath these aching feet these callused hands and double lined spirits. after years of nocturnal nights, my eyes have rightfully adjusted. so when the earth wakes and sips on the sun rays i find everything more beautiful. because what a blessing to be kissed by the moon and touched by the hands of its nightly upkeepers. they do not know our names. but i do not blame them my ancestors wrapped each syllable in barbed wire so that the only falter was their inability to swallow their pride. we are not janitors. we are clocksmiths, turning each clock back so that you can wake up easily we are gods powerful brown hands purposefully placing each star in the sky just for you to discover. we are forgivers, picking up the chaos left behind and providing the fresh start you repeatedly pray youll finally take. the one thing they do not tell you about being the janitors daughter is that you will spend your life believing it is your job to pick up after their ignorant messes even after you spent hours scrubbing away the parts of you wish you were hidden under the mop.