by Cassidy Delke
da bus
I’m on the bus
The Wyckoff bound bus
I started taking the bus more
Like the Elmhurst bus,
The bus to the hospital
For my program
Im on the bus and Im thinking
Im thinking about patterns
And recognition
And familiarity
And I was thinking about patterns
And recognition, familiarity
And my skin gets all itchy
My skin gets all itchy
And I was going somewhere late at night
It wasn’t late at night, just shy of 9:30
And I was playing my music all loud on the bus,
Dressed up to dress down, maybe,
Because he said come over
I said yes and headed over.
I said yes and sucked my teeth.
And then I was on the train.
I descended the stairs and then I was on the train when I realized: I don’t want you to tell me I can I need you to tell me I have to.
I was on the train when all reasoning unraveled
I was on the train
Trying to string it back together
W crochet hook hands
I don’t want you to tell me I can, if I want to— what do you want?
The next day, I was watching through the window a kid hand in hand jumping down the pavement with his parents
I was watching a kid hand in hand on the first day of fall
The first day of fall in my book
Where the air was brisk and i didnt care about much but i cared about it all Feet to hardwood flooring and I
Climbed out the window into the day
Shuddering like a newborn
my stomping ground
My stomping ground with the little bench addled square by the Roxy out the window
And it all came back,
It all came back haunted like the flood
The flood that swept hundreds of pieces of art work through the basement, Paintings floating in the grey and murky water
The murky water I waded through for months until
It rinsed clean
It rinsed clean the fall morning I saw the boy skipping down the sidewalk I let the breeze kiss me like it sifted thru me (three) 3 summers ago
I let the breeze kiss me I kissed it back with tongue
Pulled away giggling
Sifted my finger through its hair while it played with my porcupine head
I was on the bus, and then the train, and even though I knew— I started to wonder where I was going and what I was doing
In the following mornings, i had an idea—
married4aday
I was on the hunt
I wanted a summer’s kiss,
This private
Something
A something
Hot and sweaty and grueling, crumbling under pressure of desire
A something
So needy and eager, something that reminds me I’m 21 and
needy
and eager
My face pulsating with sunburn
Freckles sprouting from my nose bridge to my shoulders , knees
My arm ached from carrying my bag of books on exhibiting artwork, eulogies, Stonewall. I’m so hungry for a kiss,
I end up at 5 e Broadway
F had gotten married
and I was drunk already so I said can we pretend—
….. can we pretend.
The child in me said “that should be me”
On some Justin Bieber shit
My husband and I got married today for 6 hours
The tide of clouds washes over us as we sprawl on the rooftop.
When I get home I cry , and he cries presently in the overwhelm of the horizon. It’s all the horizon.
I say, this is heaven and “I see it there!”
To the Stratocumulus barking dog
Chasing The clouds
Were watching
The sky:D
He was a child in awe. So was I, suspended in his grasp.
I am a child in perpetual pretend.
He is somewhere irretrievable.
I was married for a day and I have no one to tell.
I was hopelessly in love.
I am blocked within hours.
Cassidy is a painter and writer