i have a real strange fear

By Grace Miskovsky

and it is of

icicles.

but today i pulled myself out

from underneath my bed,

i pulled my self out

from underneath the weight of days that are getting shorter,

and i went to the mailroom.

i imagined tucking a yellow envelope

inside the fleece lining of the only

winter jacket i own and i imagined

a cage of grey moths

in my ribcage.

i imagined your scent on the return address,

your heart inside

and i imagined

you writing my name on a neatly folded piece of lined paper,

signing yours truly at the bottom.

i have a real strange fear

and it is of

you slipping through the space in between my fingers

where your hands should be.

to lose you is to lose the world around me;

you are everywhere,

you are in my coffee

and in my veins

you are the atmosphere and what’s inside the soles of my shoes

you are in the back of my brain, you are in my third eye

and in the ink my pen bleeds.

you are in the nonsense my mouth spills,

you are on the rim of my teacup.

and you are at the bottom of an empty bucket of mail.

i kind of hoped,

walking back from the mailroom,

that an icicle would drive straight through my skull

like phineas gage