Synkroniciti is excited to welcome writer and poet Abigail Michelini of Pennsylvania with “Even Though,” one of our “Recovery” poetry finalists. Out for her morning run, Abigail finds herself confronted by darkness, rain, and the anxieties of being a working mother. She paints the scene with evocative imagery and repetitive alliterative and assonant music. “It’s dark, the kind of dark that lifts/ car lights and casts them like melted glass/ on the fence lining the road where I run,/ rain teasing the pavement in tiny taps.” These taps remind her of a physical meditation ritual her mother taught her when she was a child, “Tap, tap, tap my mother would tell me,/ her fingers gently drumming her brow,/ tap on your brow and say even though…” She is comforted by her mother’s voice and longs for her presence. The poem is a beautiful tribute to her mother and to generations of women showing their daughters what it means to be strong. Maintaining self care and love in the face of struggle is life saving and the practice of self affirmation is one of the best gifts a parent can give to a child, one that can last a lifetime. Abigail’s vulnerability is resonant and powerful, her poetry graceful and poignant as she reveals this useful strategy of self affirmation to us.
Read “Even Though” in Synkroniciti’s “Recovery” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Abigail Michelini teaches writing at Northampton Community College. Her work can be found in Anthology of Appalachian Writers, The Main Street Rag, and Whale Road Review, among other publications. Her debut chapbook, Brace, was published by Thirty West Publishing House in May 2025. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing with her kids and running Pennsylvania roads.