poetry by jasmine young

September

I can't tell you now where I found the bravery
to dive into those dark depths. By all accounts 
I am a coward, by all accounts small. And how, 
how is it we find ourselves again in youthful
longing? The summer nights draw longer, 
shadows leading us into the season of umber. 
The late dog days never last, though a pinch
in the heart begs them to. A much-loved 
teacher has retired; he is different now. The
cracks along the pavement fracture into 
veiny concrete foliage. The days you forgot
play on the backs of purple lids on nights
like this. Write my name in dry erase on
your overhead projector. Listen to Billy Joel
while rain slaps your face like needles on 
the highway. How many of the people I knew 
are remembering right now the way I touched
them? Do they still own gifts I gave? I quit 
biting my nails months ago and have since 
fallen into relapse. Hypnosis by blinking red
turbine lights on the invisible horizon may
be my only hope. One day I want to see one
close-up, place my chin on the metal and
stare up up at the propeller a million miles
away. Or else I’ll take the last dip in the 
glacial lake, let the cold of the water do it’s
purification ritual. Only the cool kids jump
from Devil’s Rock, only the people with sense
stay away. I am neither. In a film reel of my 
life this gray precipice stars over and over.
It is the first day of school again. It is the last
day of summer again. It is the room I lost 
my virginity in. It is a broken bathroom stall.

ectoplasm

silk slipping between the vee of my cigarette fingers, wordless. I lift them
to my lips and they're still all you. I’ve gone dry and the creekbed off the
back porch followed. Fall-rejected leaves crash land into that damp sand.
They’ll turn to rot there, rejoin the rest. I’ve tried crawling away from this 
feeling, it claws and claws. No parables prepared me for this kind of break.
I wanted porcelain smash, thread snap, single swallow but it’s all dull knife
to the skin. Raw and slow I’m seeping out onto the shag carpet and the 
matter is a silver waterfall through my fingers, pooling there at our bare 
feet. The look we share tells it all so I limp to open the door, wave. And it’s
clear, now in the television static padding of this room, that my insides
were making space, cupping palms to hold this new emptiness.