Hungry Condo
by Lydia Swartz
Congratulations! You now own whatever this key admits you to. This key makes it sacred. This key makes an inside and outside, a yours and not yours. These rooms and these doors belong to you, these windows, these shiny contraptions that chill the food and flush the shit.
You tried it first. You looked out windows. You opened doors and passed through them. You tested the lever that flushes the shit. You carried a checklist.
What did you fail to notice?
This staircase. This one is not for up and down. It is built to linger or die on. You may count its steps one at a time, but not in numbers.
This step is water you cannot drink or swim in. Its lesson is floating. Fail, and you drown.
On this step you succumb to the haptic chant of your moving thighs. You go to tell a story, but words don't matter.
This is the Buddha step. The shrine is made of loose and ordinary rock; nothing special.
This step is the town you fly over. It twinkles with righteousness just before gravity claims you.
The step you call bottom is gravity itself. It is mighty and always wins. You will search its shiny, expressionless hardwood face before your eyes close at last.
They reclaim the sacred keys. They clean the floor and straighten the carpet. The next couple, reeking of the morning's anxious sex, miss it, too. The staircase smiles its hungry, knowing smile—and waits.
by Lydia Swartz
Congratulations! You now own whatever this key admits you to. This key makes it sacred. This key makes an inside and outside, a yours and not yours. These rooms and these doors belong to you, these windows, these shiny contraptions that chill the food and flush the shit.
You tried it first. You looked out windows. You opened doors and passed through them. You tested the lever that flushes the shit. You carried a checklist.
What did you fail to notice?
This staircase. This one is not for up and down. It is built to linger or die on. You may count its steps one at a time, but not in numbers.
This step is water you cannot drink or swim in. Its lesson is floating. Fail, and you drown.
On this step you succumb to the haptic chant of your moving thighs. You go to tell a story, but words don't matter.
This is the Buddha step. The shrine is made of loose and ordinary rock; nothing special.
This step is the town you fly over. It twinkles with righteousness just before gravity claims you.
The step you call bottom is gravity itself. It is mighty and always wins. You will search its shiny, expressionless hardwood face before your eyes close at last.
They reclaim the sacred keys. They clean the floor and straighten the carpet. The next couple, reeking of the morning's anxious sex, miss it, too. The staircase smiles its hungry, knowing smile—and waits.
