Hollow Chest

     I actually didn’t end up reading the Animal Crossing poem for the spring show, I read this instead. Take a look if you’d like.

HOLLOW CHEST

things

have been easier

than they are 

now. 

now that it’s

all over, there is

that picture on the wall

i still have to take down,

and that chapstick

sitting in a decorative arrangement

of mint tins and picture books

that i have to throw away,

and that letter 

in my underwear drawer

i think i should burn.

i am wondering

what it‘ll be like

to wake up

without feeling

an absence,

it seems that 

my chest cavity 

has been carved out 

to make room 

for something else. 

but I am afraid

its only made me

dark and hollow,

when color used to burst

from the valley

of my torso,

and light used to 

reach out 

from the branches 

of my lungs.

i am afraid

i will be stuck this way.

i don’t quite know yet

how to recapture the essence

and place it back

in between my ribs,

i think

i may have left it

in the halls

of a place i’ll

never get the chance

to see again,

but i maybe you’ve

found it.

maybe by then, 

by now, when you’re reading this

you will have stars

dangling in your eyes and 

rainbows swirling in your palms

and you will be warm again,

laying on your deck

cooking yourself in the

4:00 summer sun.