By Hannah Nathanson
The stars assume I am not doing well. They are right. They are far away. They let me look. Tonight, I am stuck in traffic, drunkenly on the grass next to friends. I am standing in line in the backyard, where it is only cold when I wonder if it is. Everyone is together. I am riding the bus every time someone tells a joke. Queuing at the DMV if I try to listen. Everything is buffering. My friends, so far and so big, remind me what it is like to be scared of how safe it is. I can forget again. None of it matters, but we were still so okay some days, so made of what we were some days. Tonight, for some of us, must be like that too. I cannot recognize any of their faces. It makes me lonely, to shake hands and not remember, to only notice we are because it is dark outside and I forgot how to—. We are drinking and holding and I feel as if I am brushing my teeth.
Hannah Nathanson is a poet based in Buffalo, New York. Her first chapbook, ‘Alternative Universes’, was released with Bone & Ink Press in 2020. For more information, follow her on instagram @h.annahrose or check out her website.
beautiful!