From “Healing: An Index”
by Emma Rose Yahr
I
INADEQUATE: Mrs. Catrano’s sixth grade math class; the subject line
“I’m Not Your Robot” sent from user Cloudlily45; personas know-it-all;
nerdy; academic (see also: OVERCOMPENSATING); labeled bossy; bitchy; bitch;
(adjective): lacking the quality or quantity required; insufficient for any
and all purposes including (but not limited to) solving quadratics and
love.
INSECURE: (see also: INADEQUATE)
I didn’t have my first kiss until I was 19.
I haven’t been kissed since.
IPHONE NOTES: 5/28/18
emotionally and logically my brain didn’t have time to
switch tracks; fucking unfinished; I don’t like that I’m still writing
about you; you and that empty sidewalk; an alternate universe in which you are not
a drowning boy; impermanent and hard to distinguish
12/31/18
“don’t let someone take up emotional real estate if they aren’t paying rent”
Sarah Kay.
J
JULY: the second month of summer; or the first summer I felt loneliness
like chapped lips; I was on Drummond Island with no cell service; you
were at O’Hare, unsure if you should text me; you didn’t;
and my lip broke open; a blood red sunset; but I did not cry.
JUNE: the first month of summer; or Great Grandpa’s memorial service
four months late; the stone walls of the mausoleum making everything else
seem so small: that night at the radio station, the green floral couch;
we ate tilapia at the reception and I did not turn it into a metaphor.
K
KALEIDESCOPE: a tube containing mirrors and colored glass;
a shifting perspective; a changing pattern; I’ve stopped checking
your social media like clockwork; like the spinning tiles in this child’s toy;
baby steps.
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