Issue 02
This Is Not a Letter Avery Martin I want to write a poem that is my own. These words, these lines, this rhythm is tainted still with you. Your smell follows me, hesitating in the curtains of my senses, waiting for a cue. Well here is your cue — run. Leave me like a demon to a herd of sheep, like tears like sweat like vomit after a long night. But leave like a breath of smoke never to be recaptured. I wrote you poems. I wrote you love letters. I wrote you stories and stories and stories. Even my english teachers knew your name. Sometimes I wonder how you stayed so real, with so many words diluting you. how dare you? I think sometimes. How dare you haunt me still? No matter how many scales I shed, how many pumice stones I fill with my own dust. How dare you linger? Your shadow waits behind each left unturned, blank pages made heavy with its presence. And yet — am I the one pacing outside your door, tempting memory?
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