By Shea Krispinsky
It could be a fire escape
or a front stoop, a brownstone’s
steps belonging to some unknown
city dweller where we sit, a cigarette
burning down to its skeleton
of ash. Nighttime,
of course. Sirens in the distance,
footsteps, a radio playing Latin
jazz. You’ve gotten so thin,
your body unknowable to me,
your laugh delayed, dulled.
Weariness drags at your eyes.
Tragedy once used to be your
favorite color, but you’ve since
become inured to it, everything gone
greyscale. I want this to be
a paean to us, to youth, to who
we could have become had we
only tried. It’s not too late,
I want to declare, pounding
my fist against the cement,
but you’ve lost all concept
of time. Nothing is real; the minutes,
like us, do not move. You said
you wanted to see
the Northern Lights
in Brooklyn that night, yet
you refused
to even look up.
Shae Krispinsky lives in Tampa, FL, where she fronts the band, Navin Avenue, whose sound she describes as Southern Gothic 70s-arena indie rock with a pop Americana twist. Her fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Connotation Press, Thought Catalog, The Dillydoun Review, Vending Machine Press, Sybil Journal and more. She is currently working on her band’s second album and a novel.
