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Clocktower Review Spring 2020

Clocktower Review Spring 2020

Volume 3 Issue 2

Clocktower Review

May 10, 2020
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  1. The Clocktower Review, 2020, Volume 3, Issue 2. © The

    Clocktower Review is a biannual publication of Xavier University, 3800 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, Ohio, 45207. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the administration, faculty, staff, or general student body of Xavier Universi- ty. The Clocktower Review considers submissions of poetry, prose, photography, and artwork for publication. Submissions may be written in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Japanese, or any other lan- guage that may exist in this universe. Translations are, however, required for foreign language submissions. Submissions are collected by email and must include the submitter’s name, type of submission (poetry, prose, or art), and the title of the piece. Submissions must be original and not previously pub- lished. All submissions are presented to the editorial boards anonymously and are reviewed blindly. Cover created by Andie Parady. All text in The Clocktower Review is formatted in Garamond. i
  2. Mission Statement The Clocktower Review is Xavier’s forum for creative

    outreach which strives to de- velop, nurture, and celebrate the creative abilities and talents of Xavier’s student body. The Clocktower Review features and showcases original poetry, prose, and artwork of all kinds as made by Xavier University students in order to celebrate and promote the creative work of the Xavier community, and to create a greater and more inclusive environment by allowing voices from people of all different backgrounds to be heard. We work to build and strengthen this community of creative individuals through campus-wide events, sharing news of other happenings off campus, and the semes- terly publication of student work. ii
  3. Editorial Team Art Andie Parady Poetry Katie Nichols Alex Ackerman

    Hannah Schwager kevin william thomas Prose Alex Ackerman Isabel DeMarco Cayla Co Hannah Schwager kevin william thomas Robert Ryan Layout Katie Nichols Faculty Advisor Anne McCarty Special Thanks kevin william thomas iii
  4. From the Editors: iv This issue’s theme, “Exit Stage Left,”

    typically refers to an organized, undramatic departure. The pieces contained in this issue approach the theme from a range of perspectives. Some pieces choose to turn the theme on its head, while others tackle it from a performative perspec- tive. Regardless of their approach, all of the works in this issue address the theme with sincerity. We hope this issue can provide some creative relief to our contributors, our readers, and anyone else who may need it. We hope the work you see here inspires you. We’d like to extend a hand in thanks to all those who made this issue possible, at Xavier and beyond. Much love, The editorial team of The Clocktower Review
  5. v Table of Contents Poetry Sara Hamer Where I Come

    From Luisa Sanchez Freedom S. Simonet Still-life of breakfast, with madeleines Joy Megan Bowman Cat Dance Christina Kaminchak If Picasso Painted You Jax Benson Replacing Automation Rachel Wozniak Mother Warned Me Emily Armstrong Beware I Am Silver Brittany Wells Exit stage left Camryn Jones Letter to My Son Tyler Bauer Kerosene Prose Charlie Gstalder Smelling Spring Nina Fischer Club Nocturn Campbell Haynes How Do I Get Out of Here? 1 4 5 10 7 8 18 19 20 24 21 25 27 2 14 23
  6. vi Art Annabel Gremore Seed Bomb What Eats You James

    Reyes-Gomez I don’t like the color orange Rad Skelly Man Monica Schweiger Funkytown Emma Malinoski Untitled linocut Untitled drawing 4 19 6 12 13 20 26
  7. Where I Come From Sara Hamer I come From mountains,

    handmade, and homegrown. hand me down and help you Up. From you all look alike and what number are you again? From there’s not enough seats in the car or money for dinner I come From movies sold out in the Living Room Cinema From house rules written on page 2 of air force code of conduct weekends of windex hands that prayed in the front row From choose between heat and sneakers I come From hair that strokes my last name of my signature eyes that come in the sets of 20 hands with paint in the cracks and sawdust on top From DIY is DNA From cry often but fix always From hallways Now turned into highways piggy back rides to plane rides hide and seek, turned seeking each other rooms next door Now states away I come From no distance too far to I came From Home 1
  8. Smelling Spring Charlie Gstalder As I sit here and write,

    I long for those early spring days when I would walk downstairs and before I knew it, everything would be bright and the sun would be shinning in through the gaps between the curtains and it was always 2:00. And mom would stride out of the kitchen where dishes full of batter used to make blueberry pancakes lay soaking in the sink. The recipe from Ellie, the blueberries from Fred, the significance a combination of the former and the time that mom drove me to the diner because I wanted blueberry pancakes and a milkshake so badly and I thought I was just a year away from driving and that once I had a license this would all be easier but I just couldn’t go myself and I really wanted those blueberry pancakes the way you crave fries when you’re drunk in the street on a night out. The type of drunk where you turn to the person you love and explain to them that you’re drunk, or that you’re feeling it or that the jack just hit or whatever terminology it is you use, and they respond with “I know baby” because they do know. And they know because it’s obvi- ous and they know because they love you back. But I wasn’t drunk, I was just happy because I had been with my friends and she drove me there anyway, and I got the pancakes with the packaged butter and the shitty, sugary, slightly sticky syrup. And she’d walk out of the kitchen while The griddle lay soaking in the sink. Power went out last night and the clock is stuck at two The cat reaches out a paw to touch her She touches her too. Dad’s outside in the garden, or rather the yard, it’s too early to gar- den. He’s wearing a dirt brown tee shirt that he occasionally pulls up to wipe the sweat off a red face that like his shirt, was once white. 2
  9. He’s got a wheelbarrow, and he’s picking up small river

    stones and putting them back down in a circle around what was at one point a tree for Ellie, and at another was a fountain of a cupid in need of a catheter. On these days I am sitting in the living room with the fire- place on my right and the I’ve never thought about how they probably cried when I was hospitalized for asthma at four before. black leather piecrust table with gold leaf trim that you always need to use a gold or silver beaded coaster for, in front of me. The coast- ers feel nice against your face though. I am playing a DS lite with a Pokémon game in it. Cool wind blows in through the screens of the open window, bringing with it scents of Easter lilies and squir- rel. Charlie like the lilies. CC likes the squirrel. Mom will walk in and open the big blinds so that sunlight falls through the windows and lands gently on the soft edges of my face while illuminating the white and clear allergenic fur floating in the atmosphere, and tell me to go outside. I get up, grab a Hershey kiss from a glass bowl on my left, and close my DS. The clock on the Pokéwatch reads 14:00. 3
  10. Freedom Luisa Sanchez The morning sun rays hit me in

    the face, the birds chirp outside my window, and the steam of coffee melts in the empty air while I contemplate the view Of what once was my beautiful Valencia. Along the empty streets, a boy Holding a red rose approaches; I wait In a state of paranoia, for him. He comes to us, and all he wants is peace. Is this it? I shiver, anxiously. Has the time come? I wonder. The rose is red. 4
  11. Still-life of breakfast, with madeleines S. Simonet I Saturday morning,

    With a breakfast of madeleines and tea. The globe of orange fruit beside red flowers, And black coffee, suspended in time, Make of this moment of living a reverie, A Matisse still-life, beneath a refluence of sky. To what pleasure did I owe the sky, That touched gold to the tangible morning? The kitchen window gave itself to my reveries. Outside, street laughter echoed; it lingered in the tea. The soft sweet madeleine withstood the elapsing of time; Its sweetness was a gate trellised with clematis flowers Unfurling the tassels of their essences, gradual flowers That unconsciously recapture the moment of the sky’s Image first seen by a human eye, in a language untimely. On the threshold of morning, The moment disrobed itself in images, in the taste of tea Flavored with lime-flower, in the red reveries Of my coquelicots, whose perfumes made fragrant the reveries That associate, metamorphose, enchant my own flowering Mind. What enchantment lay in the cup of tea, In the sweetness of the madeleines, in the sky Bluer after rain, in the fruit that was there, and was morning? A quick shimmer of being, a frisson of time. The perception of time’s Vapoury recurrences, dissolved in my reveries; I had only just given myself to the sleepy morning. Yet the orange fruit, the flash of red flower, 5
  12. The dazzlingly cerulean sky Made the cake-crumb soaked with tea

    Evoke memories when I drank other cups of tea, Enjoyed other moments of ritual, timeless And ordinary. And yet suddenly the moment was the sky’s Horizon, mid-flush with sunset or sunrise, a reverie That gave existence the look of flowers At the garden gate, golden in the air of morning. I can only say, the lime-flower tea was the morning’s Sunbeam; this moment in time, beside red flowers Gazing at the eternal sky, became itself a reverie 6
  13. Cat Dance Megan Bowman The cats danced on the roof

    to the beat of the owl’s hoot Orange, black, white, gray, blue, striped kitties Their claws scrapping against the tiles on the roof I climbed out the window of the cold room to watch them: my secret I was caught, only when a cat missing his back-left shoe invited me to the cat dance I greet the calico with a timid hello Sneaking past the tuxedo cat with funky hat Having a ball with the ragdoll Russian blue, let’s dance, one two, one two Oh Mr. Tabby, why are you so crabby? Cats have four legs, I have two I could only dance for so long under that full moon I wanted to continue to dance on that hospital roof but I’m sorry cats, it’s past my bedtime 7
  14. If Picasso Painted You Christina Kaminchak If Picasso painted you,

    you would be an experiment concocted with colors and shapes catalyzed by the whip of his brush All the features of your face would be jumbled the way letters drift and surface in alphabet soup Your eyes would be off center, the line of your nose may separate your face in two your lips would be small either puckered like a fish or straight as an arrow If he painted you a body, it would be contorted like a pretzel your face would sit forward, your shoulders would stare the other way your feet would be long your hands either cupped or with elongated fingers your body would be wide, but chiseled, with the sharp lines of his movements If Picasso painted you, light wouldn’t do all the work you wouldn’t just be a depiction of the material world instead, you’d play in it and as you dance 8
  15. through space and time, your cubist little number, many would

    critique you others would try to make sense of you until the world that you shocked, rocked, and inspired, realizes that they can only appreciate you. 9
  16. Joy S. Simonet Never did the suspension of sunflowers In

    the silence of the waning afternoon, Or the late August light dappled With the passing of cloud, Or the soft sparkle of the windchimes On the screened porch, bring a moment Into the fulfillment of being, like that moment Of stillness dawdling amongst the sunflowers On that particular Wednesday, when the windchimes Tinseled the afternoon Air with silvery passaggios of cloud. I could never forget those sunflowers, dappling With the play of light and shadow, as they dappled The woven cloth of reality with a moment Of beauty beyond comprehension. What made the tapestry of cloud After the summer rain, the pungent wet soil, the bodies of sunflowers Become conflagrations of being? Beyond the late-afternoon Arrangement of things, beyond even the windchimes Shuddering with metaphor, those mysterious and numinous chimes That were the jewelry of reality– it was the spools of light unraveling on dappled Flowers that irrupted the recurrence of all late-afternoons, That transfigured wet petals and inflamed the rust of the spade; they made the moment Of sunlight an irradiance of color and sound, a blaze of sunflowers Turned upwards in rapture, a blossom of existence glimpsed, mirrored by the reddening cloud. Yet when I walk, alone, on garden paths of summer cosmos and sleepy cloud, 10
  17. Throbbing with zinnia, marigold, linden tree, I cannot help but

    find the windchimes’ Lilting music, or the incorrigible yellow of sunflowers At the highest pitch of sadness; I find in them a lane, dappled By shifting tree-leaves, rediscovered yet accessible only in momentary Epiphanies of sunlight. For what truly is, the metaphysics of late-afternoon, Eludes us still, as do our own souls; only the afternoon’s Arrangement of flower and cloud Can embroider the elapsing moments With significance, can give meaning to windchimes Dazzling the limpid air, and point us toward the ecstasy we have lost, that still dapples The changing of clouds and the unfurling sunflowers. It is the glissandos of afternoon sunlight that give sunflowers The look of ecstasy, for a moment; then, the clouds dapple A moment of joy like the surface of water, the ancient echo of windchimes 11
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  20. Club Nocturn Nina Fischer My first thought as I stepped

    through the open door was that the club was dark. My second thought: no dip, Sherlock, it’s called Club Nocturn for a reason. I guess the owners took their theme seriously. Most of the overhead lights were broken, the shattered fluorescent bulbs still screwed into their sockets, framed by metal spray-painted black. Even the old styrofoam-esque ceiling tiles had been taken out, leaving behind dark crawl spaces filled with random wires and empty support bars. The floor, once covered in weird plastic tiles, were now only bare concrete and old glue, adding danger to every click of my high heels. As I stepped farther into the main room, my hands flew up to cover my ears in an attempt to block out the wretched music blasting over the sound system. The walls just added to my distress, as shades of black, navy, and purple swirled together, giving me a headache after too long. The only light in the whole place came from the DJ’s set up and the dim lights above the bar. Alcohol was the only thing that would lessen the horror of this night out. Not only had Miranda strapped me into a pair of high heels, she had also shoved me into a pair of too-tight skinny jeans and a revealing black tank top. Thankfully, she had allowed me to grab Josh’s leather jacket. It was too broad in the shoulders, but the cuffs had curled to the perfect size. Miranda frowned when she saw it. She hated any reminders of the fire. Regardless, I never went anywhere without his last gift, and I wasn’t about to start now. I made a beeline for the bar, but before I could get too far, Miranda grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the dance floor. “Come on!” She had to shout to be heard over the noise in the club. “You promised to dance with me. It’s no fun if you get drunk first.” Miranda was my roommate and had been since before Josh and I started dating. She was always dragging me out of our apartment and into what she called “The Real World” filled with ad- venture and, more importantly, alcohol. She was about a foot shorter than me, with long brown hair she spent an hour curling every morn- ing, and she had a penchant for trouble. 14
  21. “No way. I’ve seen how you dance in a crowd.

    I’ll turn my back for one minute and you’ll have disappeared.” I tried to pull my arm out of Miranda’s grip. “It doesn’t matter how I dance anyway. You lost the dare.” Her face was gleeful. I was usually the better gambler, with my dead-pan poker face and willingness to choose top pick, but this time Miranda beat me out. I sighed and gave into her demands. I lost the dare and now I had to pay the price. Closing my eyes, I let the music, terrible though it was, pull me in. Song after song passed me by. The beat of the music was all I cared about. Boom. Boom. Boom. Every wave was stronger than the last. Miranda had disappeared into the crowd some time ago, probably carried off by the people around us, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I wished Josh were here. I remembered dancing with him. One of his arms curled around my waist, his other around Jack Daniels. I could feel the pressure at the small of my back. I could smell the whiskey. The DJ’s unintelligible yelling broke me from my spell. I needed to clear my head. I made my way through the crush of people to the bar. My head was killing me, and I hoped the alcohol would dull the pain. That probably wasn’t a good sign for my mental health, but it was Josh who got me hooked on “medicinal whiskey” anyway. He always had a shot in the morning to get rid of his headache, another at lunch to settle his stomach, and at night he had as many needed to have a good time. With Jack and Coke in hand, I crept around the edges of the crowd, staying close to the wall to avoid spilling my drink. I passed the DJ’s table and the large archway behind it, entering an empty hallway. As I stumbled through the dark, the air seemed to grow heavier. The adrenaline high from dancing was wearing off and my feet stumbled over the uneven concrete. Old wooden doors hung off their hinges, revealing abandoned rooms filled with broken desks and overturned chairs. Bulletin boards and display cases were still mount- ed on the walls, but now, instead of club sign-up sheets and basket- ball trophies, all that could be seen were splatters of paint and broken 15
  22. glass stabbed into once white plaster. Sweat ran down my

    neck. It was getting harder to breathe. I had to wipe my hands on my jeans as my chest began to rise and fall rapidly. My throat felt like I had swallowed broken glass only to cough it up again, and my hands were shaking faintly at my sides. I should turn back, find Miranda, and forget this ever happened. But then I saw it. An eerie blue glow came from the lamp, seeming to spread out over the walls and floor like an oil spill. After so long in the dark, the light slithered over my skin. It was sticky, clammy, gross every- where it touched. The sickly white of the lava lamp’s base only added to its creepiness. I stared at the lamp, not able to wrench my eyes away. I wanted to move closer to the lava lamp, but the light flashed before I could move. And then, I could see him. He was standing in front of the lamp, haloed by its blue glow, dressed in his old leather jacket with a bottle of Jack in his hand. His smirk was the same as I remembered, slightly mocking, slightly fond, as he said, “Hey, Bri. Long time no see, huh?” My hands were shaking at my sides. I had to lock my knees to stay standing. This wasn’t possible. Josh couldn’t be here. But he was. Behind him the lava lamp’s light pulsed and with every wave of light Josh became more and more solid. Josh was here and brought by the lamp. “You don’t look very happy to see me, Babe. Don’t you miss me?” His grin widened as he stepped closer, the bottle of Jack swing- ing loosely in his hand. Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. “Or maybe being confronted with your mistake is too much for you.” That statement broke through my panic. “My mistake? It wasn’t my mistake. You were the one driving. You made the mistake,” I croaked. “It was your mistake--your mistakes, actually. You drove me to the party. You bought me the bottle of Jack. You wanted to leave early.” As he said this, his appearance began to change. His once handsome face was now covered in burns, the smell of burning flesh heavy in the air. I flinched as the crack of breaking bones echoed in the hallways. His clothes were now covered in blood and ash. “You 16
  23. let me get behind the wheel. Your mistakes, Bridget,” he

    spat my name like a curse, “your mistakes are too many to count.” “No. It wasn’t my fault. Those were your mistakes, not mine. Your mistake to drink too much. Your mistake to insist you drive.” I was shaking my head in denial, but my trembling hands gave me away. “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?” Josh taunted. I tried to deny his accusation but couldn’t form the words. The truth was, I did blame myself. I blamed myself for enabling his drinking, for buying him that bottle of whiskey, for letting him drive home that night. I stared at Josh, trying to come up with a reply, and it was then that I saw his body flicker. I straightened my shoulders and looked the ghost in the eyes. This Josh was nothing more than a phantom conjured by some freaky lava lamp in a nightclub. My Josh was gone, and I knew how to get rid of this pale imitation. Ignoring his question, I lunged toward Josh. In one swift move I grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels out of his hand and swung at the glowing lamp. It was almost like the lamp knew what I was going to do as it began to glow so bright that I had to shut my eyes. Thankfully, my aim was true, and I felt the lamp shatter upon impact. When I opened my eyes the hallway was dark once again. The lava lamp had disappeared as though it were as see-through as Josh. He was gone, and at my feet was a broken bottle of Jack Daniels, whiskey spilling over the floor. 17
  24. Replacing Automation Jax Benson I replace things, Just little things,

    Like peanut oil for olive oil Red onion for white Wood fires for gas Just the little things I switched rusted iron nails For steel screws And I replaced the rust With hydrochloric acid Which I passed through a charge for the hell of it I swapped my lacrosse stick For kamas and staffs Which is kind of funny Because I traded my knives and hatchets For that lacrosse stick I want to replace my organs With clockwork My blood for ichor and polymers Which would be more comfortable Because I made the replacement And I replace little things My body for automation My self-directed displeasure for My love of another And the scars on my hands For the fingers I interlock with yours. 18
  25. Mother Warned Me Rachel Wozniak On the other side of

    the rolling green The grass is greener Clouds part to bring sunshine Voices of laughter whir They have freedom from the cliff The cliff that separates the ripe blackberries From the needle inside our kind. Mother says never to lick a blackberry Never to let the voices hear us And never to lust the brighter green. Tripping over unsteady moss covered stones, Straining to reach for the low hanging fruit. I have disobeyed. 19
  26. Beware Emily Armstrong Mother warned me with an icy voice,

    Beware the cliffside, dearest. Beware Where the blackberry clouds wither And biting chills lick your soul. Beware the cliffside. Beware Where madness whirs into your mind Poking, prodding, pushing all reason gone, And like a needle, those whispers go For One Final Kill. Beware the cliffside. 20
  27. Exit stage left Brittany Wells Act I Your house feels

    now more like an antique mall A place in which relics of my past self reside A self i no longer know, but who i’m sure i’d find in an instant in my reflection in your eyes That’s danger a part of town i’m afraid to return to a tourist attraction i pass as a thrill any time i think i’m settled now just to remember i’m not Act II Thank you for saying no when i couldn’t For stopping the 2 passenger vehicle which came to a screeching halt after ignoring so many red lights, just barely missing a fatal accident An intentional accident An accident which played each time my eyes fluttered closed An accident i begged for, on my knees, tears streaming an i accident i pleaded to occur a mistake a misstep the best thing i couldn’t do Act III when all lights fall to the floor in the void of black and silence whispers climb from beneath my throat seething marks claw into my tongue my ears burn with the clamor of Absence in this sacred silence 21
  28. left home alone Shaking my own being the singular flicker

    Ambience can I keep warm by the light of my own fire? am I in good company whilst left Alone Act IV It’s been 3 months I’m in our I’m in your I’m in My favorite thrift store I saw your parents in the driveway with their brake lights on around the corner in that part of town I see your face in every crowd In every silver car I see an accident i see you Act V My fire seethes Embers scar My clothes spotted with empty circles wrapped in black lace Every flicker a new heart beat Pulsation enflamed and erratic Leaps through my rib cage and snatches can i add you to my fire? i don’t want to burn alone 22
  29. How Do I Get Out of Here? Campbell Haynes I

    was aware that I was in a room very unlike any room I had ever stayed in before. There was a strong, acrid odor of antiseptic in the air, and the temperature seemed unnaturally colder than I would have expected, since last I had known it was late July outside, and Cincinnati was sweltering and gasping for cool air as usual. There was a peculiar light emanating from somewhere I could not discern, seeming to come from the walls themselves instead of from a lamp or ceiling light or other direct source of light. Despite shivering with cold, I could feel that I was draped with several layers of thin blan- kets, each one white and thin but mysteriously warmed, as if they had just been taken out of an oven. I could hear soft shuffling sounds from outside the room and softer moaning noises that seemed to come from further down a long hall. From inside the room with me, I could also hear a soft, snuffling noise like my cat Leo makes when he sleeps, since he always has a stuffy nose, but this was almost drowned out by a louder gurgling roar that rose to a peak, then broke off, only to begin again moments later. What was this strange place, and what dangerous beasts was I entrapped with, and what prisoners were moaning and lamenting outside? As my head began to clear, I cautiously turned my head, wondering why just moving my head to lay the side of my somehow swollen face caused so much pain, and peered in the direction of the internal room noises. I saw my mother slumped in a chair, curled as usual over a book, with a dim headlight poised on her forehead as she usually would for night-time reading, but with her eyes closed. She was making the soft snuffling. That gave me a guess as to the source of the gurgling roar, and my next glance confirmed this sus- picion: there was my dad in another chair, head thrown back, mouth agape, making what we called his “nose music” that he emanated when falling asleep in a chair. What could they be doing here? And why was I in this bed, virtually entrapped among metal bars, feeling my miserably swollen face, and snuffling and snorting myself like a pig with emphysema? 23
  30. I Am Silver Emily Armstrong Surrounded in a field of

    gold, I am silver. I am not that brilliant, unforgotten light That remains ever most within your sight, Taking the center stage for constant applause. Nor am I those precious metals of miners’ dutiful prayers In hopes for fortune, wealth, and fame for all. Neither am I bold and in your face, with an Irish jig or an Italian fouetté, In attempts to astound and amaze a watching crowd. But I am soft, with hidden delight, The way the stars can always resonate within the soul, Or the way you gaze at the moon’s sodium light with such renown. And like the moon lying just beyond the sun, The lack of light does not dispel its brilliance. But the moon’s humble knowledge of what it is Makes it that much more—Beautiful— I would like to be golden, But I know, silver is who I am. 24
  31. Letter to My Son Camryn Jones In this land, land

    of the “free”, you are black before anything else Before the innocence of childhood, you are black Aging you far beyond your years. Before – innocent until proven guilty— you are guilty, baby your skin is incriminating So when you walk out of this front door, pull back that hood no matter how cold In this land, land of “exceptionalism”, Appearance is everything your being is reduced to a shade a color in which you cannot control Skin that proves you damned by default But do they consider? Unescapable confinement Is why we so bitter? All this burden for no weight, All that working for no pay Child, with skin that grounds you to the roots of resilience make them consider Black is power Black is strength Black is lit with the lights out As you grow my son walk with no shame A black man is hunted by predators in disguises that costume them the “good guys”. There are prayers in the strides of a black man, 25
  32. Kerosene Tyler Bauer Sometimes I paint a picture just to

    burn it lines traced and brush strokes carefully placed sometimes you give me love i don’t deserve it a ship lost at sea, some sailor forgot to turn it dark waves crashing the hull, engulfed in white foam sometimes i paint that picture just to burn it a song wrote, melody of melancholy but nobody ever heard it notes perfected, in a secondhand serenade but in the end we don’t deserve it the moss and lichen covered shelter of an old hermit weathered and worn, has stood the test of time but i would still burn it and when the flames take hold never to return it the orange and yellow glow, scaring away the shadows burn it, burn it, burn it, i don’t deserve it even of this, lines pondered and erased then rewrote for a sure fit will soon be reduced to ashes like everything else match lit, but what if as i burn it that love you gave.. I deserve it 27