Tamagotchi Cemetery by Rosie Accola
You do not need to assign esoteric meaning to everything.
So human with your hubris,
certain of the mechanics of this,
that those above and those below know we’re trapped inside the house.
The final girl in a horror movie,
four walls, a roof, I feel like screaming.
There’s nowhere to go but ‘round the block with my dog.
Cul-de-sacs seem gestural once change starts to subside.
An open space,
lavender sky,
thunderstorms loud like a wound.
Our old selves fall asleep on the floor of our closets.
legs folded beneath a pair of salt-stained leather boots with scuffed toes
shoulders ripping stitches from too-tight blazers
I listen to the deer scrape their hooves against the creek bed.
Their bodies are lithe and capable,
they stand shoulder-to-shoulder,
the trust between them is intrinsic.
I miss toll roads
and mall food courts,
the feeling of being somewhere new.
Two A.M. buying popcorn at a gas station just outside of Ohio, back in the car our voices volley, sleep heavy. We dig around the same bag of snacks. Our knees touch.
The cashier at the thrift store was going to light up a joint, but then we walked in. We tried on some shoes, soft calico dresses. I found an angel tank top from a forgotten Hot Topic. The dressing room was just a curtain on a pole with some christmas lights wrapped around it.
Thrift stores know how to feel familiar. Even the name implies that someone sifted through this rack of sweaters before you running their fingertips over crushed velvet skirts that another someone else wore for middle school choir concerts.
Familiarity is the best balm for loneliness. A pair of footprints remains on the moon because someone shifted their weight and stepped forward hoping to be the first in a long trail of steps. The present is cavernous. There’s no antidote.
Rosie Accola is a poet and editor based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the online editor for Hooligan Magazine. She released her first full-length poetry collection, "Referential Body" with Ghost City Press in 2019. You can follow her on Instagram @rosieaccola