- 2020 Volume 15
poetry
I’m beginning to see the fissures.
On top of the hood of my car,
Together trading hits from a Marlboro
Cigarette. You sat with such confidence,
Firmly believing each and every puff
Brought you higher and higher
Up the social chain. I, however,
Was only your shadow. Blessed
To become a solitary part of your story,
Not the beginning, not participating
In your finale, just a rest stop.
The wind was heavier than your eyelids
Post a drunken, sleepless night.
I held your hands between mine,
And warmed them with all of my soul.
You were always cold.
I was always warm.
Similar to the feeling you get
When you understand something,
But don’t fully get it,
You are a sentence I cannot read.
The syllables sounding something
Familiar, yet in this world, this cold
Fucking twisted, shit-house world,
Familiarity can be poisonous. But,
If I just ran.
If I just took one breath and one step,
And ran far beyond where you
Could find me, would I be at peace?
Who would I really be?
I find myself talking through your teeth,
Comforting myself with something sweet.
The only problem is, as time goes on,
It sounds less like something you would say,
And more like something I want to hear.
We all say we’d rather hear a truth
Than a lie, but at the end of the day,
It’s all just a prison in writing.
Tear a scrap of paper and scribe
Your hopes and dreams.
You wanna be a millionaire, kid?
In five years, you’ll find
This scrap of paper huddled,
In the mouth of a fly.
You can’t exactly remember who
You thought you were going to become,
But this certainly isn’t it.
Artwork by Olivia Bikhazi