MAIRA RODRIGUEZ
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7 WAYS TO HOLD ON
I. It’s the spring of your 18th birthday and morning cloaked in black grieves. You gather a fistful of dirt, drop some in your pocket, look to opened metal gate at green paint you applied last summer, now a shedding skin. NO TRESPASSING sign stomped into ash in the driveway, silent lights of cop cars block entrance, stand by as bumblebee men with yellow helmets unravel a limp python, watch it spew its inner river II. Linger at the door now seeped in black soot, hanging on a hinge as if drying, the one with the drawings you scribbled in first grade with your big brother’s green Sharpie. Determine the last time you closed the door behind you and felt safe, the fire too strong, and this is where it all started, faulty wires surged, a deadly sparkle traveled, and the door tried like you now try to find traces of your ink
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Volume 17 • 2022