Falling starsThe meteor shower is supposed to peak tonight. There’s something so mesmerizing about watching bits of space rock hurtle through the atmosphere and disintegrate. I want to lay outside and watch for the shooting stars, but it’s the first night in weeks that clouds are in the way. Out of all days it could’ve been cloudy, it chose tonight to be the night, the one night of the week that I’m actually home for dinner. The wishes were never meant to be granted; the simple hope should’ve been enough. While people are trying to break free of lockdown, I’m trying to keep myself from bursting into flames. Every day looks the same and I’m going through the hours so fast that the friction is rubbing me raw. I’ll vanish in an instant if I’m not careful. Much like my camera today while I was out taking photos to commemorate Earth Day, I’m running low on energy and have trouble focusing on everything around me, even though it’s oh so close. The semester is dwindling and May starts next week. I ignored my gut and now I pay in all the lost files. I tried to clean my room, but the piles have only traded places. We’re all like the stars; we look so close yet we’re actually light years apart. We just need to hold tight and hope we don’t lose ourselves to the black hole of despair. I wish I could close my eyes and wake up to find that this was all a bad dream.
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This poem was published in the Fall 2020 edition of Medium Weight Forks, a literary magazine created at Northwest Missouri State University.
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Ghost town bluesKnock knock knock. Nobody’s home. Motivation should be
here but she seems to have disappeared. I need her help; we’re supposed to compile three thousand plus words into coherent passages, making a collection to boost the good ol’ portfolio. She must be at Procrastination’s house over on Writer’s Block. They’ve been spending so much time together recently, dancing barefoot in the rain, making lists of things they'll never do. They’re obsessed with the past, fascinated by all the dusty journals and fraying memories. Procrastination has always been against moving forward. But I know he’ll be on vacation soon, and Motivation will come running back with a new list of all the things we must do. Achievement has been a ghost town, but the desolate roads will thrive soon as people start coming home. Over the horizonWe have one week left before all hell breaks
loose. That’s when we reach an end and we still have so many questions Too much unknown, the real terror of our situation. Yesterday the hot sun burned down on us through the drive-thru window, our brows glistening with sweat. Anna said it felt like suffocating, trying to communicate clearly through the cloth barrier. We can’t catch a break. It’s hard to be happy when we’re perpetually yelling. Hours later, the sun shifted in the sky, shining directly into our eyes. People decided to pull as far away from the window as possible, expecting us to climb out the window to give them their nine Dr.Peppers with no drink carrier because our supply had run dry. The line never stopped, it grew branches, triggering many almost accidents. We thought it’d never end. Isolation will never end it seems. We haven’t even reached our peak, 1000 plus positive cases in two days pushed the total state count over 5k. The man with all the power in the corn state decided it’d be a good idea to start opening restaurants and salons and malls back up in the next week. Restlessness is understandable but that doesn’t make negligence excusable. Once the sun slipped behind the building next door, its rays glowed through the cotton candy clouds like an expensive acrylic painting. We found awe in the scene and felt some semblance of serenity as the day slipped into nightfall. When our current circumstances start to disappear over the horizon, I hope it’ll be just as beautiful. |
This poem was published in the Fall 2020 edition of Medium Weight Forks, a literary magazine created at Northwest Missouri State University.
May 2020
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