Salt Citrus City
By anonymous
There’s no time to die in that
Salty citrus city black hot asphalt sizzles the sausage patty on your breakfast sandwich Friendly Felon Line Cook flips it and it lands heads up FOR GOOD LUCK in the blue fountain at the mall you work at Too many days a week according to your Doctor and at the request of your Mother Who spends way too much time in the church you shared a kiss at with your maybe 2nd or 3rd girlfriend In the feminine secrecy of that pink tiled utopia you locked lips IN THE FACE of GOD the same one you’ll later pray to and ask for the mercy of a quick pinch in the nose is what the piercer will say to you as you lie on your back and close your eyes The same way you did when you were too scared to fall asleep and trust fall back into your sister’s arms as you play games at a park you don’t remember recognizing under the cotton candy sky you lift up your broken phone to take a picture of a foreign skyline and breathlessly realize that you beat the midday rush at that popular chain coffee shop in citrus city where a day couldn’t go by, not even the hour without eyes meeting green in a redhanded exchange with the white truck that pulls up to the stop sign when the driveway is empty and you sneak out of the side door of that gate that your parents got
Ripped off on after the hurricane There’s the neighbor’s kid who you pretend to ignore as he calls out to you during your private purchase where you’re leaning over and spreading whipped butter over a burnt bagel and pretending to enjoy it The same way you did maybe 2 years go when your hair always touched your neck and your laptop could hold a conversation for longer than how far away everything felt as litter and street signs stand pacing right past you changed from You to Me as an admission of guilty by association and rendered innocent by the blood of Christ if we ever forget to love ourselves enough to maybe use some cents, maybe 99¢? It was the store I remember running to after walking past the railroad tracks and waving goodbye to a girl you used to know and really cared about you know the one about how elephant carcasses become food for scavengers because it’s too spoiled and rotten for the king of the Savannah, like the friend of the girl I stole a pair of shorts from after practice, the practice of patience with yourself as we try not to laugh at how silly bands sting like the blades of a fan maybe covered in fine tracks of dusting sugar along the silver boxes in poorly lit bathrooms in that salty citrus city
-e.r.
