Paige Welch, Contributing Writer
Part I
Being young
Thinking about being older
Forcing my being flung from the present,
The birth of an obsession with the future.
Now I am here at the future,
thinking about being older
But I’m scared this time.
I’m sprawling
Filling the volume of the container
I occupy and spilling out
Into the ones I shouldn’t.
Wish I could shrink
Back to a size where I could fit.
Be young again and tell myself
To quit dreaming about something else.
If I could have known
That I would leave no space for existing
I would have stood up and climbed
Out of my thought bubble and explored
Those frightening expanses
Before I stuffed them full of myself
Part II
I wish fear
Didn’t suck the nectar out of my veins
Leaving me to be a bag of blood
Among a pile of bones.
Life matter unanimated
Still casting a shadow along the long
Patches of grass up in the open valleys
Of places I have never been to;
Because I was unable to leave my bed
And be real
Part III
I said
That I was lonely.
He told me he was sorry
But never came around
To fill up some spaces.
It’s a lot
For me to expect
A person to be more
Than they are but I want him
To be the things I can’t be
For myself which is someone
Worth loving.
Part IV
Her fur was long and left
Black clumps all around the living room
Especially on the sofa,
Where she would watch the world
Without it watching her.
Her tumor was also black blending
With the fur but had a scent like
Winter death thatt fed on old bones.
Her brown eyes asked me to say
Why she was dying but I couldn’t:
I ran away to cry and ask why
It wasn’t me instead.
Once in a while I will find a dark wisp
Trapped under a table leg.
I feel her against my finger tips
Before I let her go.
Part V
I want to be alive
But I don’t want to feel it.
Have the roughness create friction
Mess up my skin
Dead skin cells falling like snow
Onto an invisible city
Draping it’s bones in an off gray
Sheet with the scent of living.
Slowly the shape morphs;
It becomes phantom.
The city, now seen,
Is in ruins.
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