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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