August 18th
She slides her black ankle boot off her left foot, doesn’t miss a beat. The
window is eight feet tall. Each floor is two stories. She thinks this is
perfect. It’s riding up the small roller coaster humps of her rib cage,
the ones that always come before a big drop. She puts her hands up, how
similar this is to being taken hostage. The paint is a dull off white,
peeling to reveal the splintering brown wood underneath. She doesn’t want
the elevator lurch of a sinking stomach. She didn’t know what she wanted
and the picture is still fuzzy. She picks at flakes of paint and watches
them snowing onto the sidewalk below. Maybe the picture is the problem,
the pictures she imagines descending down a stairwell. They’re nailed into
thin air, into a complete fabrication of possible, into something that
doesn’t even stand. She presses crescent moons into the wood with her
nails, grips the window frame until her knuckles begin to mimic their pale.
She abandoned the first thing that felt right for the last thing that felt
familiar, and that’s the only reflection of it through tonight’s distortion.
Slowly, she pulls herself up into the window, stands on the radiator and
stares at Cow Palace across the street. She can’t stand the idea of alone,
and when she has the epitomic stamp of love binding her she wants nothing
more than the low moan of a door jamb in her own empty house. She wants
whatever it is she doesn’t have, and she doesn’t have a firm grip on the
handle-bars. There is a cool breeze blowing at her body, the type of cool
she can never be. The unfeeling cool, the detached cool, the cool that
forgets your skin and goes straight to your bones, reminds you how hollow
you are. She has her arms up, she tried to get air and not think about the
approaching drop, she tried to tie two hands together and meant the double
knot to stay tight enough to link more than railways and causeways and bad
trips. The air smells like the ocean smothered in smoke. The entire city
exhales. She didn’t expect to unravel so quickly. She pulled the cord at
the right stop, she rode the fourteen bus into the ass end of nowhere and
fell asleep on her own mind. Her body begins to bend toward the sky, her
body is all spine and petals. She found you, smoking and polished,
churched and hell-bent on nothing, deliberate in your painstaking numbness
and wine drunk-pessimism. Her world ended every time she tried to walk
down your stairs. The lights below her change to red, a bus burps black
smoke from its tailpipe and people limp from the doors like wounded mice
escaping a maze. There were no records on the wall of any kind of
permanence, any kind of normal. You wouldn’t belong to her history of bad
vibrations and undesirable un-doings. She’s got too many loose threads for
the fear rattling the bars of your smile. She steps up onto the window
ledge, splinters work their way under her nails. She kicks her right shoe
out the window and counts how many times it bounces after the initial
impact. She wants the sunflowers to bend toward her instead of the sun. She
wants unreasonable truths and farfetched lies. She wants the bridge to come
down so no one else ever has to jump. She stands on the fourth floor,
looking down at Daly City, imagining the inside of the mess she’ll make. She
projects it onto the sidewalk, a Rorschach of human splattered where she
fell. She fell so hard. She fell heavy and true. This won’t be by accident.
This won’t be an act upon her. This won’t be a decision by default. All
her decisions are by default. All her decisions are still her fault; she
wants to be the fault line on the California coast. She wants to bring the
buildings down with her. She holds one leg steady on the window ledge. Her
right foot steps over the windowsill and grips concrete with its naked
toes, drinks in the red bricks, so dull and vibrant all at once. Her
entire body hangs like a sail, a Salem steak splitting her open. She
crucified herself on the fog rolling in over Cow Palace. One foot inside
the apartment and the rest of her was ready to jump. She wants you to see
her, beautiful and bold, a sail ready to balloon open into the wind. She
looks down at her shoe and starts to cry. She leans forward until only her
fingertips tie her to this world. She doesn’t want to belong inside of
anything so small as a human hand. She doesn’t want your grip on her
waist. She wants the caustic negligence of your hopelessness so she can say
she wants something real and be comfortable knowing there’s no possibility
of home. She wants dissonance. She wants the feminine motif to be heard,
she wants to crack open the sonata and let hell rain down on her. She
doesn’t care if it burns, she thinks scars suit her well. Her left foot
stays inside the room. The fog swallows what’s left of the day. She can
feel her pulse in her teeth, her throat jumps forward with each beat. Her
throat says *Lucy, we have so much fight left.* When the contents settle,
she shakes them up. When shaking isn’t interesting, she throws the snow
globe across the room and watches the light refract off the broken shards
of glass. Cars honk. Nobody looks up. Everything about her screams for
disorder. Except the photos on the stairwells and the cottage in the woods
made of dark stone. There are a thousand books in every room. There aren’t
even any stairs. It’s a one story cottage, barely big enough for two. She
wants the portraits to be nailed into something. She cannot hang onto
nothing. She’s a white sail, puffed up with pride and full of hot air. She
lies so much she doesn’t know what the truth looks like anymore. The fog
started rolling into her room, pushed her back and made her body heavy. She
found truth on the fourth floor. If you didn’t talk her down, she would
have jumped. The Richter scale would have tipped in her favor, the golden
gate bridge would have folded its hands over her to cover up the hole she
left. She is a part of you. Her nails left bite marks on the window, she
stuck her foot back inside her boot and rode the elevator down 8 stories. She
doesn’t want everything to break open on the pavement, she just doesn’t
know any other way. Each floor has two stories. She wants to know what it
tastes like at the bottom of the hill. She’s never made it past the small
humps. Her hands are up, she’ll fly out if you don’t hold on, but if you
hold too tight, she’ll jump. There are always at least two stories.
MOLLY KAT has been writing since she was five years old. Her first poems
were scrawled in cerulean blue Crayola crayons. She is a graduate student
of Literature and Literary Theory at Binghamton University and has work
published or forthcoming in Omega Magazine, Foothill Poetry Journal,
Pedastal Magazine, Muzzle, Corvus, Toad the Journal, Samizdat,
H_NGM_N, and many others. She is working on a manuscript called Lucy, from
which AUGUST 18TH is an excerpt. Lucy is a third person experimental prose
poetry narrative about a young woman exploring the parameters of existence post-
trauma.
She slides her black ankle boot off her left foot, doesn’t miss a beat. The
window is eight feet tall. Each floor is two stories. She thinks this is
perfect. It’s riding up the small roller coaster humps of her rib cage,
the ones that always come before a big drop. She puts her hands up, how
similar this is to being taken hostage. The paint is a dull off white,
peeling to reveal the splintering brown wood underneath. She doesn’t want
the elevator lurch of a sinking stomach. She didn’t know what she wanted
and the picture is still fuzzy. She picks at flakes of paint and watches
them snowing onto the sidewalk below. Maybe the picture is the problem,
the pictures she imagines descending down a stairwell. They’re nailed into
thin air, into a complete fabrication of possible, into something that
doesn’t even stand. She presses crescent moons into the wood with her
nails, grips the window frame until her knuckles begin to mimic their pale.
She abandoned the first thing that felt right for the last thing that felt
familiar, and that’s the only reflection of it through tonight’s distortion.
Slowly, she pulls herself up into the window, stands on the radiator and
stares at Cow Palace across the street. She can’t stand the idea of alone,
and when she has the epitomic stamp of love binding her she wants nothing
more than the low moan of a door jamb in her own empty house. She wants
whatever it is she doesn’t have, and she doesn’t have a firm grip on the
handle-bars. There is a cool breeze blowing at her body, the type of cool
she can never be. The unfeeling cool, the detached cool, the cool that
forgets your skin and goes straight to your bones, reminds you how hollow
you are. She has her arms up, she tried to get air and not think about the
approaching drop, she tried to tie two hands together and meant the double
knot to stay tight enough to link more than railways and causeways and bad
trips. The air smells like the ocean smothered in smoke. The entire city
exhales. She didn’t expect to unravel so quickly. She pulled the cord at
the right stop, she rode the fourteen bus into the ass end of nowhere and
fell asleep on her own mind. Her body begins to bend toward the sky, her
body is all spine and petals. She found you, smoking and polished,
churched and hell-bent on nothing, deliberate in your painstaking numbness
and wine drunk-pessimism. Her world ended every time she tried to walk
down your stairs. The lights below her change to red, a bus burps black
smoke from its tailpipe and people limp from the doors like wounded mice
escaping a maze. There were no records on the wall of any kind of
permanence, any kind of normal. You wouldn’t belong to her history of bad
vibrations and undesirable un-doings. She’s got too many loose threads for
the fear rattling the bars of your smile. She steps up onto the window
ledge, splinters work their way under her nails. She kicks her right shoe
out the window and counts how many times it bounces after the initial
impact. She wants the sunflowers to bend toward her instead of the sun. She
wants unreasonable truths and farfetched lies. She wants the bridge to come
down so no one else ever has to jump. She stands on the fourth floor,
looking down at Daly City, imagining the inside of the mess she’ll make. She
projects it onto the sidewalk, a Rorschach of human splattered where she
fell. She fell so hard. She fell heavy and true. This won’t be by accident.
This won’t be an act upon her. This won’t be a decision by default. All
her decisions are by default. All her decisions are still her fault; she
wants to be the fault line on the California coast. She wants to bring the
buildings down with her. She holds one leg steady on the window ledge. Her
right foot steps over the windowsill and grips concrete with its naked
toes, drinks in the red bricks, so dull and vibrant all at once. Her
entire body hangs like a sail, a Salem steak splitting her open. She
crucified herself on the fog rolling in over Cow Palace. One foot inside
the apartment and the rest of her was ready to jump. She wants you to see
her, beautiful and bold, a sail ready to balloon open into the wind. She
looks down at her shoe and starts to cry. She leans forward until only her
fingertips tie her to this world. She doesn’t want to belong inside of
anything so small as a human hand. She doesn’t want your grip on her
waist. She wants the caustic negligence of your hopelessness so she can say
she wants something real and be comfortable knowing there’s no possibility
of home. She wants dissonance. She wants the feminine motif to be heard,
she wants to crack open the sonata and let hell rain down on her. She
doesn’t care if it burns, she thinks scars suit her well. Her left foot
stays inside the room. The fog swallows what’s left of the day. She can
feel her pulse in her teeth, her throat jumps forward with each beat. Her
throat says *Lucy, we have so much fight left.* When the contents settle,
she shakes them up. When shaking isn’t interesting, she throws the snow
globe across the room and watches the light refract off the broken shards
of glass. Cars honk. Nobody looks up. Everything about her screams for
disorder. Except the photos on the stairwells and the cottage in the woods
made of dark stone. There are a thousand books in every room. There aren’t
even any stairs. It’s a one story cottage, barely big enough for two. She
wants the portraits to be nailed into something. She cannot hang onto
nothing. She’s a white sail, puffed up with pride and full of hot air. She
lies so much she doesn’t know what the truth looks like anymore. The fog
started rolling into her room, pushed her back and made her body heavy. She
found truth on the fourth floor. If you didn’t talk her down, she would
have jumped. The Richter scale would have tipped in her favor, the golden
gate bridge would have folded its hands over her to cover up the hole she
left. She is a part of you. Her nails left bite marks on the window, she
stuck her foot back inside her boot and rode the elevator down 8 stories. She
doesn’t want everything to break open on the pavement, she just doesn’t
know any other way. Each floor has two stories. She wants to know what it
tastes like at the bottom of the hill. She’s never made it past the small
humps. Her hands are up, she’ll fly out if you don’t hold on, but if you
hold too tight, she’ll jump. There are always at least two stories.
MOLLY KAT has been writing since she was five years old. Her first poems
were scrawled in cerulean blue Crayola crayons. She is a graduate student
of Literature and Literary Theory at Binghamton University and has work
published or forthcoming in Omega Magazine, Foothill Poetry Journal,
Pedastal Magazine, Muzzle, Corvus, Toad the Journal, Samizdat,
H_NGM_N, and many others. She is working on a manuscript called Lucy, from
which AUGUST 18TH is an excerpt. Lucy is a third person experimental prose
poetry narrative about a young woman exploring the parameters of existence post-
trauma.
