“There is Nothing at the Top (Based on Jean-Michell Basquiat’s Mother©)” by Lauren Kupelian

Wooden statue in the corner of the bedroom collecting dust

A few years since they slept in the same bed

Nagging voice in the back of my head

Mother follows me everywhere

even though she can’t drive

Says I’m the best thing in her life

Seems I’m the only thing in her life

Climb each rung in solitude

Swear to never need someone the ways she needs me,

never treat a child the way she treats me

Only voice I want to hear over the phone four years up the line

Only ladder I still know how to climb

I imagine

thirty-nine with a man in my head

We don't sleep in the same bed

Drop my baby off, cry at the bus stop

There is nothing at the top

Lauren Kupelian is a freshman from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. She is studying BCN at UMich.