by Kaitlin Venneman
no matter how much i arrive it is empty. centuries
of abandoned dust never touched by skin & a little red pump, sun
faded logo drained
in some future where no one but me is waiting.
no one has ever been here,
but i know they have before.
i will be the attendant, i already decided in some faint premonition: leaning through the wood wall, drawing the phone when it rings (rings rings) even though the cord only reaches static.
what barely exists before me is all i belong to, all i know i cannot return when i do not remember where time chokes my balance on this center of forwards and backwards
i can’t find my brother through the wire so i find myself pulling up cracked pavement trying to find a map etched into the miles; i find myself stretching into the concrete like a sunburn; i find myself dissolving aqua into a desert somewhere else i could swear i’ve been.
i find myself lingering between the hours, plucking distorted guitars strings on the dash, jumpstarting unlucky horseshoes
in a dizzy film recall a house crumbles into the sand as though weighed down by the sky i bear the wood chips as evidence of home home in the way the crash settles across the dust not a collapse but an implode atom returned to atmosphere bones scattered with the weather exit
wounds with no entry wounds my tongue caught between the pages of the phone book means nothing here no past, just an infinite present.
kaitlin venneman is a poet & creative body most known for her poetry collection, arcadia. risen from the west, she now resides in brooklyn.
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