16
this is the sound of your pain, unplugged.
held my breath because
you can’t hold my hand when
the wind is hurling glass and live
stock around at one hundred
and two miles an hour. an hour is
all i needed to feel comfortable enough
to burrow my hands into you. to bury
my regret in a promise of next times. next
time won’t scrape my knees or pride as
badly. that’s one idea i had today. today i
broke a sweat crossing the street and didn’t
feel sorry for the shivering denizens of Everywhere
else. today could have been a blink from
a speck caught in my eyelash, but i couldn’t
shut you down or up. i wouldn’t let you in
or out. and the tug-of-war
woke me up. woke up from cross eyed
vacant romanticism, slurred walk lean limp struts,
woke up from shhh...i don’t want to know
your name, let’s just fuck for a little while
in the field, but don’t take too long, we
don’t want them to notice we’re not inside.
inside that moment, this one lay waiting. the
weight of waiting hurts more than any good
or bad bye. by the time i unpack from one
trip another is planned. i plan my
healing as my undoing recedes. and in
between the awes and the griefs, i
am a cord knotted up under my desk,
millimeters from an outlet,
not believing in an electricity
that could never be mine.
Elly raises a moonbeam in the Saguaro fields while she crafts poems and songs and paintings. She is an accomplished procrastinator and doesn't mind admitting that she really does care.
