i have a real strange fear
By Grace Miskovsky
i have a real strange fear
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