by Sarah Cristine
I was scared back then that Id forget
what everyone I loved looked like somehow
maybe some accident maybe nuclear war
anyway Id keep photographs under my pillow
and run my fingers over them again
and again in the night like reading braille
but I have real fears now you know things like
fine lines and black widows and analog clocks because
sometimes when I fall asleep I start walking
before I know where Im going and when I wake up
Im barefoot in a public bathroom
nothing but two bent quarters in my pocket
but theyve ripped out all the pay phones in Union Station
and even if they hadnt I cant think of anyone to call so
I book it home alone and I brush my teeth
with a butter knife in the dark the cold tap running warm
and in my head I say I love you to my brother
but he doesn’t say it back of course he is too busy
remembering that time when we were children
how we came upon a crow with only half a wing
bleeding tar and lying putrid in the street and we
watched it struggle to fly for two hours before it died
some neighborhood tomcat rutting about like a marauder
in the background and even then I thought to myself
funny how birds never seem to end up roadkill.
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Sarah Cristine is a poet and writer from Los Angeles, California. Her work has been published in Midcult*, the Car Crash Collective Anthology, and BRUISER Mag, among others. She is a 2025 Best of the Net nominee and very happy to be here. ig: @sxcristine / x: @standrdbrunette.
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