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Mar 2014 · 332
Happiness in Transit
Laura Mankowski Mar 2014
Pack your bags with the pieces of your broken heart
And hop the first bus outta here
Find a seat among the crowd
The tires start to roll and you sink into yourself
The night welcomes you
Only a perfectly dismal amount of light leaks from overhead
Casting strange shadows over the seats
As people attempt to read
A voice breaks into your peace
Telling stories of lost love and past lives
You find solace in the words
And comfort in the company
Relieved to give up part of your anonymity
The steady movement of the bus lulls you to sleep
And you find happiness
In transit
Mar 2014 · 395
Life Blood
Laura Mankowski Mar 2014
My blood is my precious gift
I guard it righteously
If you cut me I bleed knowledge
The words drip down quietly from my body
Pooling into puddles of books
The dark red leaves my veins, turning into ink
The pages read of vows of loyalty, fidelity and trust
Telling my life story
Each drop counting a lifetime of laughter and tears
Each splash sharing my thoughts, my feelings, my soul
The books I bleed are rare
The world turns a blind eye to my volumes
Seeing what they will
Blank pages and listlessness
But my blood is my precious gift
It gives life to classics
Mar 2014 · 257
Untitled
Laura Mankowski Mar 2014
Our friendship went up in flames
Because I set it on fire and watched it burn
And now my eyes are bleary from the ash,
Pained from the duration
Blood shot
Open for hours? Days?
Reading and rereading the words
It makes the most sense to just erase
What’s left to hold on to?
All the other casual reminders that used to lay about
Are now relegated to a small space
On a high shelf
In a less-than-often thought of closet
They don’t seem strange-
Those empty spaces
Time has erased feeling off the walls
Or they are so used to comings and goings
They’ve fortified themselves against impermanence
However, their blankness traps me in-
In with the essence of you
That lingers
Like the smoke
Mar 2014 · 242
Pause
Laura Mankowski Mar 2014
There is the time of night
When the world feels still
The loudest noise is the rising of the moon
Or the flicker of the stars
This used to be my favorite time of night
Like the pause when an orchestra shifts from warming up
To playing
It’s where the world keeps its secrets
Those few hours
Before the shadows on the wall fade into
The warm golden rays of morning
Those fleeting moments
Most people spend wrapped in their sheets
Languidly tossed among their beds
Clinging to their dreams
I sit and linger
Patiently waiting for the dark to speak
Wanting to hear the secrets the night has to offer
But those moments share nothing
The blackness remains silent
And I bide my time
Waiting for the sun

— The End —