Lizzy Burnam 🐞

1. 
That shin splinting trek 
between the blue wave you want 
and the paint blazed bark 
you’re clinging to 

2.
The raking eye contact 
with someone you might’ve loved 
through a corridor set aflame 
by the knowledge that you met 
too late, or too soon 

3. 
The kingdom come 
of learning to sit still enough 
for the red fox cub 
to grace you in the meadow 
and the flag that finally fell  
the day the vixen screamed

4. 
The circling brain drain 
when the smell of cigarette smoke 
hurls you back to yourself, small, 
watching your mom in the mirror 
while she braids her hair 

5.
The little hell you drop into 
when you see those passing wafts 
of smoke and childhood  
become endangered 
by buttery licks of diacetyl 
and the awkward beat 
of popcorn lung 

6. 
The short drop from apex aplomb 
to shaking like prey 
at angles and asymptotes 
and the shared root relative
of numbers and numb