How Many Ways Can You Say It’s The End?
It’s over.
Pack your bags.
That’s a wrap.
Goodbye.
From dust to dust.
It’s in the bag.
That’s it.
The final countdown.
Cut!
Submit.
It’s over.
Pack your bags.
That’s a wrap.
Goodbye.
From dust to dust.
It’s in the bag.
That’s it.
The final countdown.
Cut!
Submit.
after Hailey Small
brings martinelli’s to book club, takes two naps on sunday, stocks up on sunscreen. She’s strawberries drizzled in honey and sprinkled with lavender and a little bit of flake salt. June wears malachite
and tells you she’s shedding, nothing to do with her uterine lining and everything to do with her boss and her boyfriend and her boundaries. June gets voice notes from her lover and saves them like her favorite song.
June gets called a bitch at work. She doesn’t close the blinds when she kisses, she’s not shy. June walks to work with an umbrella or a steel cup or a brick. You could call her crazy but can you blame her?
June is my ex-lover in the mountains, who can’t say she loves me without a mushroom or two, I’m glad she’s here but I know she’s leaving me, she’s beautiful, but fuck, I don’t want to be cold again.
The sweet toothy smile connecting
pink chunky monkey cheeks
and agog blue eyes connecting
with me on FaceTime was the exact
elixir needed to spring this cantankerous
granny from her grumpy throne
She answered the blind call and instantly
linked eyes and hearts with her sugar booger grandson
Momentary division united by undivided attention
In the downward spiral
you miss the ascent up the ledge
but you have to fall
hit the ground hard
break a few bones
before you can get back up
and climb again.
As I fall,
bracing for impact
I wish I could go back
to the moment before I lept
but there was nowhere to go but down
so I smack the ground
and feel the crack in my ribs,
I mourn you everytime I lay down to go to sleep
The heat that you’d transfer through your shirtless skin
The softness of the hairs that live on your arm
The way your collarbone would show just a little too much
The way you’d laugh with nothing but your smile
The way your fingers felt wrapped around my waist
Like time didn’t have a hold on me
And the world stopped spinning just so we could sleep
You’re tattooed on my heart
You’re in every song that I listen to
There’s a character like you in every book
An actor in every movie
Every memory that floats into my brain
Your scent lingers in every place I visit
I teach others the exact way you taught me
The ghost of you is in everything I do
I don’t know how to escape you,
How to escape the thought of you
what do i remember? the tone in your voice
when you said my false name, the laughter
amongst you and your friends, the inside jokes,
the getting off, the pretending that’s not why I was there,
the facade of not being demeaned, the gaze of being watched,
the exhaustion of holding everything together, the silence
of your disappearances, the characters on display,
the wish to be amongst the sea peoples in glorious adventure,
the boyishness of your insecurities splayed out against the screen,
the way in which your confidence masked it all, the passion
for life and the things you enjoyed, the confusion of just not seeing
the whole picture, they reaction when i said your true name without knowing,
the truths we told each other amongst all the lies, the search for beauty
in the depths of our disillusionment, they way hoping to talk to you
kept me here another day, the meaning of your friendship,
the unrelenting question of what was real, and the frustration that felt so good.
to the fairest,
i’m sorry and your welcome,
thank you and forgive me,
you did not ask for this,
but no one could play this part but you.
do not
or belittle your words
try to turn them
away from Webster’s purpose
shape them solely
for someone else
serifed soldiers, ready
for the battle
raging now
in our hearts
across country,
across worlds
