at tisch

by Sarah Stahlman

Purple eyes and hunched back licking the plaque

from behind my teeth. Tisch is quiet tonight and I wish

I could tell you about my melatonin induced nightmare - you’d chime in

that you’re worried about how much I sleep, I’d reply that it’s not that deep.

I saw one of those Scott Street TikToks of bittersweet

quotes and paintings about loneliness and girlhood and the ghostliness

of time, and one slide said that they had simplified

life and discovered that the only thing worth having was a

person happy to see you when you walked in the room. But then

I thought about how I had thatI’d enter Tisch and you’d look at

me and smile through your mask. I guess I found myself worthy to ask

for more. Now that I’ve had some distance from it all - the rule of thumb

about time healing everything really does have its merits - I think I left because

I expected to be saved from the outside in. Anyway, being here tonight reminded

me of you. I wish you’d walk past my table while pretending to work. Smile

at me beneath your mask. Lean out your broken screen to kiss me. Lap at my shore.

at tisch - by Sarah Stahlman