Billy Pilgrim Ponders
One word pulsing in my throat, desolate
red sand expelled clay avalanche
I slide across the brow of a plateau on my belly
this plateau never ends last week it was
the opening lines to Slaughterhouse Five.
Unstuck Unstuck Unstuck in
time I will be bigger than this. I will take
one pill instead of two. Maybe it is better
to stay crawling. I can do this until I can
find an edge to fling myself from and no
one will know until I’ve been flung.
I am crumbling in to powder, at work
it was eat. Kind of sick because I couldn’t. I
am finding small victories like being
able to type the word “attached” using only
my left hand. How am I supposed to pick out
Taylor’s birthday present when I am made of
sand? I dig deeper with my knuckles to find a
labyrinth leading to a tomb—as you can
imagine this is where my heart would be but
Sam said I am incapable of love and Zack said I
am a flower, both wanting me to ruin
them in the same for their own sadistic pleasure.
I want nothing to do with any of it. I am scraping across a
plateau I am redrawing the maps with sharp Edges. You
will not convince me that the Earth is round. I believe in a
horizon and a soft tether around my ankle. Backwards
bungee jumping in shackles is another
way to say gravity if you are as depressed as I am.
A trumpet played into a smoky chimney
Is what I imagine when you laugh.
When we kiss I try not to think of our tongues under a microscope
Fat fuzzy slabs pulsing
Most people have abandoned this afternoon but the wine is open
and you’ve lost the cork so we have to finish it all.
This is the closest we will come to commitment—
an upright bottle of moscato
leaving an indent in the grass.
My Friends Are Artists and I Am Grateful For Them
When it is safe—Kate has momentary lapses of genius
Whereas Will is full genius all the time Except
when he is drunk and all the Smart sloshing
inside him dumps over the edges tumbling
out orifices pattern as a pail of sand bumping
against the hip of a child
toddling up the beach.
and that’s what Will might have wanted.
Someone else to take his sloppy, not even
to create something of it, but to be held
in a delicate palm that isn’t riddled with
Wellbutrin until the sun bakes him into
oblivion.
Colby McAdams is a recent graduate of the University of Connecticut with a degree in English. Some of her recent work has been featured in The Rusty Toque, Four Ties Lit Review, and The Long River Review. Her hobbies include dominating the aux cord at parties and inviting her demons to dinner with a bottle of wine. You can also find her on Twitter @Coco_erin.