"lit up" by Alyssa Yankwitt
November 9th
Age is just a matter of how fast you lose
time: I make my plans two months in advance,
grieving and recording and staying still
hoping this never ends the way it feels
like it never began. And we have
been assigned to die together, like cut
flowers for being common, a vow to accept
days we barely touch, but gather up
our depression in the littered bedroom
silence carving notches on the bedpost: days
I’ve been alive since I realized I’ve lost
you—like a closed-mouth kiss in the morning.
Natalie Easton
Age is just a matter of how fast you lose
time: I make my plans two months in advance,
grieving and recording and staying still
hoping this never ends the way it feels
like it never began. And we have
been assigned to die together, like cut
flowers for being common, a vow to accept
days we barely touch, but gather up
our depression in the littered bedroom
silence carving notches on the bedpost: days
I’ve been alive since I realized I’ve lost
you—like a closed-mouth kiss in the morning.
Natalie Easton
Natalie Easton is somewhere in Connecticut, reading a book of poetry by Sharon Olds or Mark Doty. She battles depression and anxiety, attempting daily to out-metaphor both illnesses. Her work has appeared in such publications as Rust + Moth, Foundling Review, and tinywords.
Alyssa Yankwitt is a poet, teacher, bartender, sometimes photographer, and earth walker. She has incurable wanderlust, enjoys drinking whiskey, hates writing about herself in third person, and loves a good disaster
