Lake Trash
Lake Trash By Nicholas Arthur
1. Just the Position for You Jennifer has found a job for me hurling packages onto trucks in the dead of night.
The email was sent early this morning. It’s not the first. I rarely open the messages, but I keep getting them.
2. Lake Trash Our lake is only good for boating. It’s too polluted to eat what you catch or to swim in. People fish, but usually
throw them back. Our lake is owned by trucks that peel out in the middle of the night. It belongs unassuming names hidden away in office parks. Our lake isn’t ours it’s theirs.
3. In November, on a Weekend I am across the way shoes with five stripes walking fast to meet you. Loving eyes water with excitement, it’s November.
I dry them quickly before I reach the park. We meet and talk about nothing in particular. I want to kiss you, but never do. We don’t talk a lot now. There are parties at your new Dad’s estate
that I hear about in passing. I never ask to go.
4. Ashes on My Sleeve We walk with your friends all day
to find someone who’s selling. I hope we don’t find them. I day dream about when my parents took us to a go kart track. I can’t remember the name, but I’m sure it closed down years ago. The memory floats about, outlined in hazy decay as I quietly follow along.
We never meet up. I skateboarded home to eat dinner with my parents, feeling better than I had in a long time.
5. Quiet Why doesn’t he sing funny anymore? He used to close his eyes as he strained for notes he would never reach. He now sits quietly
and stares at nothing in particular. The music plays on, leaping out in every direction, full of life.
6. Reduced to a Number I watch a broadcast of Iraq being bombed before I go to bed. I lay awake thinking about the buildings being reduced
to rubble on the evening news. I think about the weird mix of somber and celebratory that colors the broadcast. I think about
living in fear of a bomb crashing through my ceiling. Thoughts forgotten and extinguished, reduced to a number.
7. For the Next Two Years My friend buys cheap vodka from creepy older kids. We fill up glasses and try to fit in.
Someone runs up behind me and puts out a cigarette on my arm. I swallow hard to keep the alcohol from coming back up. We stumble all the way home. Your Dad unlocks the door
after we fumble with the lock. Me and your Dad struggle to put your shoes on. You’re wheeled into the emergency room with your pants down, but otherwise completely fine. I wait drunk in the wrong waiting room,
watching an Al Pacino movie on TNT. My Mom picks me up at 6 a.m. I have a curfew for the next two years of high school.
8. Secret Magic We met you at your house on a night
that radiated some sort of secret magic. Magic that peaked up through the cracks in the sidewalk and lived between the buzzing streetlights. Carried by fireflies, dancing about in the dark. Nick Drake was playing on your laptop. We met at your house
that summer and I knew it was the start of something I couldn’t explain.
9. At My Local Library I found jazz in creaky shelving at my local library, flipping loudly through security cases.
I found jazz in scratched Coltrane CDs I picked out because of the cover art. I found jazz and felt something in me change for good.
10. Secret Compartment
You told me to come over as soon as I could. I raced over through persistent rain and howling wind. We went to your room and you opened the back of your Playstation to
fish out a crumpled bag of crushed green. In the closet you grabbed some 40s of cheap beer. I found an excuse and made my way home,
excited about everything up ahead.
11. Margins I started to draw in the margins again after I quit the football team. I started shaky and awkward, strategically placing my hands so my classmates wouldn’t see.
I started drawing in the margins again for the first time since middle school when I thought I was worthless and had nothing to offer. I started to draw in the margins again cautiously, but with a sense of unfettered
joy.
12. Hero Worship
I put a box on the back of a wagon, taking it around the backyard to collect all my toys. I remember little about it other than having a sense of pride as I did it. I wanted to emulate the people who hurled trash from the curbside under the fresh light of a new day.
13. Walk, Don’t Run My partner lovingly plucks my gray hairs as we walk into the pharmacy. I’m comfortable with this and am ready for something different.
14. I Wish I Did My mouth is dry as I babble about
nothing in particular. I’m sitting on the stairs talking to a girl with a Mohawk. The lights are off and we’re waiting for the police to stop circling the block. Everyone in the house
is speaking in hushed tones. We part ways. I don’t remember her name or what we talked about, but I wish I did.
15. Show Me Around I’m your lover, sweaty palm in yours
as you lead me somewhere new. Somewhere distant and lovely and indescribable. Flowers blooming on every window ledge,
colors dancing among us. I’m your lover and I’m new here, patiently waiting to see everything that awaits us.
16. Attempts Cheap erasers
smear stray lines like heavy rain clouds. “How to Draw� books stack up on my dresser. Crumpled paper overflows the small basket by my bed.
17. Returning to the City
I was reborn on a new slab of concrete. I became a stranger again to survive. I became better. I became
bones reanimated, lovingly. Became a cozy night in. Soft touch and happy with age, new grays coming
more frequently. I became better.
18. I’ll Do What I Can I’ll sweep the glass in the back of the bus. Dig the trenches for a swing set that will never
be built. I’ll check the rat traps near the room that doesn’t get used anymore.
19. Bruises You’d punch my arms purple and blue.
You’d make me do pushups in front of you in hopes of getting tougher. I started looking around every corner and jumping whenever people came into the room.
You told the other kids we were friends, I don’t think I ever did.
20. Approaching 30
Candles on a cake, love in the small moments. We head back late cautiously driving across new ice. On the left we see a clearing covered in blue
Christmas lights. We stop and get out to look at the display featuring ten or eleven trees in the middle of nowhere. It’s hard to tell why they’re there in the first place.
Approaching 30 is strange.
About Nicholas Arthur is 27 years old and currently lives in Michigan. He is a Wayne State University graduate. Along with poetry he dabbles in music and art. When he is not writing he can be found looking in the bargain bin at the record store, drinking coffee far too late at night and eating breakfast any time he pleases. He has a cat named Simba.