By Chloe Wheeler
some things i hate
the flavor of the dying vape i found
on Leya’s kitchen table. burnt watermelon.
microplastics. bruised apples, green bananas.
i hate that my I is all knotted up in your You.
codependency. entanglement. enmeshment.
i hate my eyes glued on You, ascending
the steps at 145th St. Station. all my books
and my clothes in crates in your room. i hate
being a Capricorn. talking to CPS on the phone.
poorly affixed coffee cup lids. so many stains.
the sunny Sunday after tragedy befalls you.
inappropriately wonderful weather,
the shrill cries of blue jays, telling lies.
bad cover bands. cryptic tonsils swollen
like fat grapes occluding my vocal tract.
wheezing out an aria. smokers lung.
wasting time trying to understand
its passage. the insidious oblivion
of Youtube shorts. mukbangs.
your big sneezes, smearing snot
on my leg in the absence of tissues.
the absence of You, taking
all of my Me.
i fucking hate Tuesdays.
dear Madi
i can’t help but think daylight wasn’t meant to be saved.
the road is a void, i stop at a red. the tire pressure light is on.
you helped me fill the tires on Luke’s Subaru in New Paltz last February.
he snapped a b&w photo of us doing it on a disposable Fujifilm.
i’ve got a copy somewhere, must’ve misplaced it.
we’re both city slickers now, downtown degenerates.
the scene subsumed us, didn’t it. and as it were,
i don’t remember how to put air in the tires.
checking the Honda booklet while the red still burns…
dashboard. cd player. airbag warnings. moonroof, mirrors.
the sun is too often the main character.
the moon is almost always a symbol of itself,
yet i feel its tug the strongest.
we got thrown out of orbit, didn’t we?
long island is but a quagmire, my dad texted.
i drove him home last week from the hospital in Oceanside,
avoided every pot hole on New York Avenue.
i thought of you, and your dad. how’s Bryon doing?
how are the dogs? how’s Mooney and her thumbs?
it’s only 5:49 and it’s so dark i can’t read the manual.
a flash of green. i’m accelerating. kale mushroom egg bites
on the steps of St. Nicholas park. reading Luke’s poem.
we touched grass. i’m so happy we’re in love.
i’m so happy—i could cry and pull out all my hair,
stuff it in the Nicorette box we kept
on the table at Tompkins, beside the ceramic mallard.
i swear you were there when i saw the green ray
in Saint-Jean-de-Luz. like the click of a laser
beamed into my corneas. irrevocable instant.
the waves broke immediately after it passed.
i ate tomatoes doused in olive oil at a tiny bar
by the beach, and thought of the storm
we were caught in two years ago, on another
coast, clutching you as ozone flooded our olfactory,
clay oozed from the cliffs, and lightning smote the sand.
it’s impossible not to see God in your eyes since then.
at Sunoco it’s $2 per vend, for four minutes of air.
counting change, i open the moon roof for some circulation.
jamming quarters into the slit, i fill my tires with thoughts of you.
home, sick
choppy sea of carpeting,
L-shaped couch,
Led Zeppelin poster.
my high school boyfriend was a painter.
he had a knife on him, always
stowed in the pockets of his cargos.
when i’d sing he’d cry.
he sold a 6×6 foot canvas
to the drummer, the guitarist
didn’t know what to think of him,
and the bassist was always barefoot.
i don’t know what made me stop singing,
when the pitches bent, and i got lost
in some ceaseless caesura.
all i know is that when i’m home,
in Long Island, i hide
under leaf piles, poking my head out
only to watch herds of deer
dash down the hill
in my parents’ backyard.
my ex-boyfriend was in a car accident
and walks with a cane now.
the Mustang was speeding,
and spun out—
it was nobody’s fault.
with his disability checks
he balls out on Grailed.
i just happened to crash out.
it was nobody’s fault, but my own.
i moved to Brooklyn for fucks sake.
it was bound to be a blight, at any rate.
that band? they’re still playing. the guitarist sings now.
i’m happy for them, truly.
but all melody becomes mist.
sound moves at a rate of 340 meters per second,
until it becomes intractable, immaterial, barely an echo.
sound is the ephemeral incarnate.
only light never decays.
Chloe Wheeler writes poems. Her writing has appeared in Expat Press, Hobart Pulp, Don’t Submit, Bullshit Lit, among others. Twitter @sardine_enjoyer