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Elizabeth Halaas Sep 2014
I never thought my body would act without me

I'm not thinking of

The new work I'm not competent in yet
The test I need to pass today to get to
The next test
And the next
Every week
For a year
To the final test
Which determines if I'll be middle or lower class
For the rest of my life

I'm not thinking of
My roommate's problems
My boyfriend's problems
My parent's problems
(Which are as variant and serious as my own)

I'm only singing along with the radio
But my body knows
My body is thinking and worrying and working on overdrive
It holds my breath, it protects my vitals, it drops my blood pressure
My face tingles with the blood that leaves it,
My ears ring and my vision turns b l o t c h y
And I feel fuzzy and clammy, dizzy and heavy
I'm going to pass out

But I have to get to work!
Or class!
Or home!
Otherwise I will fail
At work
At school
At my career
At home

I'm holding on, I'm pushing through
But my body is stressing, and being
Hypotensive
Ariel Baptista Oct 2014
I believe that we could do it
If we really wanted to
I could really fall in love with you,
If I let myself.

And I bus home
On a rainy day
through the blurry embers of autumn
smeared on the Greyhound window
Remembering how she and I
Walked back after that movie
Our breath crystallizing in the wind
But barely breathing
Full of reverence
and sweet sisterhood
the cinnamon bun midnight
and soft whispers
of the life we used to have together.
Bury your sins beneath the heather
and hibernate in hypotensive hallucination
a final hallelujah
of appreciation
for the gifts that were ******
so prematurely in our arms
Straight from the oven
they burned our unprepared infantile hands
as we stood, indifferent to distant lands
and consumed by our own reality.
Well, we're grateful now.
Grateful in a way that destroys us a little
We both know we both know too much
to ever be completely okay
And who would ever want it any other way?
We smile through hard earned tears
and kiss the make-up off our years
And breathe the air of the country that gave us life
And we don't shy away from the things that make us hurt
And we thank the things that help us heal
And we know that home is never farther than a bus can carry us.

So I think we could do it,
If we really wanted to
I could really fall in love with you,
If I let myself

(Lord knows I need an adventure)
ATL Sep 2019
I am unborn,
clawing through clutter
and encouraging my salivary
glands to push moisture
through the will of hypotensive
medication.  

Laying next to my betters,
begging to die of a heart attack
while I *******.

It’s nothing like falling asleep next to someone.

I am nothing
but half-breaths lent as largesse to
a hypothetical togetherness
hurriedly collected in the night
and burnt into reels of film.

I ascend ladders,
my favorite has its base resting
in my spine,
I climb it up,
always up-

only to find lacerations  
in the fibers comprising my thigh,
and a lovely image of
a love that is not.

— The End —