I’ve been trying to find ways to ask you out, baby, without exposing the fact I’m a cheap she-clown in baby-powder make-up. Duck into the tent, peep behind the curtain, ask the fortune teller this: ‘Can you really love someone who leaves you to die?’ I’m a crystal ball, honey, all my intentions laid bare in these lines, in these pages. Stuffing my face with popcorn to take the pain away. Life feels like a high striker; I keep hitting it and hitting it and I never hear the ding ding ding! Never win the giant tiger plushie. I have nothing to cuddle in my arms without you, dear. Is it my fault I was numb for a decade? That I missed every smile and sweet whisper thrown my way like knocking over glass bottles all in the name of a prize we’ll lose down the backseat of a car? It’s my fault. I was too late for you, too scared. Now all I have are sepia memories like photos from a distorted booth of the times we shared with friends over pizza, blushing and crying until my cheeks turned to puffy cotton candy. I’ll drag my broken body back under the sheets and cling to my phone, imagine some half-dream of a summer where we’ll meet again at a carnival, just like this.
Sarah Loverock is a writer, poet, and MA Creative Writing student. She has been previously published in Streetcake, ang(st) zine, and Pussy Magic. She loves all things witchy and spiritual, history and mythology, and cute animals. She is available on Twitter @asoftblueending.