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Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
This is how it happens
Obsession then compulsion
Humming humming, jet propulsion
Palms to temples, heat emulsion

Pulling at the thread pulling at the
Thread pulling at the
Thread pulling
At the
thread
Thread pulling at until there’s

nothing in my head
Nothing in my
Head nothing in my
Empty underfed
Head
Nothing in my head

I’m just pulling at the thread

Pulling pulling

Pulling at the

At the thread
Pulling pulling at

Until
It
Stops.
It comes in waves and torrents and I wring myself out into a vase of Foxglove, begging it to grow
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
Thank you for your steady breaths
And thank you for your weight
Thank you for your patience -
I do come in so late.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
Is there anything better
At the end of the day
Than a big lazy dog
And a comfortable couch
And nothing to say?
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
An overgrown aloe plant
Threatens to topple headlong
From her too-small resting place.
Reaching, as she does,
Reaching her tendril-like fingers
To the sun,
She bends and leans against the dining room window.

For herself, the sun is a casual riser this morning.
Rusty peaches and plums streak the sky,
A line here and there standing out among the hazy morning.
Cloudy today, supposedly, but clear and bright in these early hours.

It looks cold out there,
even the sunrise tints her paintbrush with frost,
And the naked trees slash dramatically black against the increasingly pastel background.
No wind. The leaves are still.

I take this moment and secretly fold it behind my ear
To visit among the noise of the day
To breathe in like a cigarette,
out like a sigh.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
The house smells wonderful,
Golden and buttery as this morning’s delicious sunrise on our front porch,
And your eyes twinkle as I venture a first bite.
“Pretty good, right?”
It’s a quesadilla and it’s perfect,
exactly to my preference.
Warmly brown and crisp on the outside,
Cold sour cream mingling with too much hot melty cheese and chicken and all the fixins.
A real knock out as far as quesadillas go.

I smile with my eyes and happily munch,
not especially hungry but I know you are.
You spoke this into existence,
A master of your own love language.
In many ways, I am fed.

.

Ingratitude does not become us;
I eat of your hand and rejoice the offering
As my brain whispers:
“My love, please leave me to myself.”

These days I am as two ships passing,
So rare an hour is it to shake my own hand,
Cull my own thoughts,
Breathe my silent breath unaccompanied.

Spinning sugar and spinning wheels are my god-given gifts.
I use the first to coat my tongue.
The second hangs in the air between us.

“Better than good,” I say,
Moving to rest,
To dream my silly dreams,
To paint my silly heart across the mercurial landscape of shared memory.

I am my best when I end my days like a spoiled Pomeranian:
Seated on a cushion
Worrying a bone.

.

The mysterious clicking and clacking of the HVAC tip taps merrily to the rush and whir of the electric heat.
The impression of a kiss still lingers on my cheek
In the quiet.

The house smells wonderful,
Golden and buttery as this morning’s delicious sunrise on our front porch.
It is a miracle to build a structure with your bare hands that bends without breaking,
and supports your weight without shaking.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
I would like to take myself very seriously.

I’d like to be a painterly writer,
Like Nabokov,
Or a wry storyteller like Jenny Lewis.

Comparison, especially to this degree,
Is the thief of joy I hear,
And I am but me.

A professor once scolded me during a practicum session,
“This is not a dog-and-pony show.”

But she’s wrong.
It is.
It’s all nonsense and I get to be the ring master.
What could be more joyful than that?

Maybe Nabokov is a creep
Maybe Jenny Lewis is a Hollywood mirage,
And maybe I’m just a silly little goose
Who puts thoughts on paper
As if I deserve it just as much.
Elizabeth Kelly Dec 2024
You feel unheard,
This much is clear,
Screaming into the child’s ear.
It’s something you’ll later deny
When you learn you scared her
And made her cry.

You cried, too.
Boo hoo hoo hoo.
It isn’t Christmas
Without a meltdown or two.
And always from you,
Always keeping the score
It’s funny how everyone else has more.

Yes, we can hear you,
So loud it’s obscene.
Pour some wine, smoke some ****.
It will make you less mean.
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