Slide
We’ve been fighting over
the side of a slide on the playground about yesterday
afternoon. My boyfriend and I broke
into an abandoned house and fucked
up the wooden paneling with
a hammer in search of treasure, but found
insulation that smells like suffocation. A snuff
of a drug like a hat that comforted me, until the high
faded, and I saw
the hole in the wall and I crawled inside,
and coughed into the abyss. I smacked him.
He kissed me and together we
leave.
A child screams,
chased around on the ground, I look down
from the top of the equipment. I sit in silence
and slide
to the bottom of the structure into a cluster of gravel stones
where my boyfriend greets me. He grabs my
wrist and we kiss under sticky sunlight, woodchips
stuck in my sandals I can’t bear
the taste of his spit.
Misty Yarnall is a creative writing major at SUNY Purchase, with minors in screenwriting and playwriting. She is currently working on an one-act play and is outlining a novella.