Long Island
Maybe it is just me experiencing the liminal space
between hypomania and the crash, or maybe my
nerve endings have been blunted, mutant anhedonia,
but the sky and air tonight tinges nostalgia that I want
to feel but I can’t for various reasons, but you died
and maybe I should be glad you’re dead so you can’t
see who I’ve become, what we have all become, little
techno shamans, little Eichmans, yes, I am in my car,
not near the ocean but close enough to smell seaweed,
the dead fish carried on the breeze, sensuality fled
years ago, it’s a distant memory, cars go by, people
buy their bagels, asphalt molts in the twilight sun
and I think about your flesh and how it is rotten,
how we sloughed off identities like dermatitis ridden
skin, I’m glad you don’t have to sit in traffic, your eyes
haven’t gone blurry from the blue light, eyes no longer
fastened to your pupils, no more do you feel digital
rape, I’m jealous, even if I have no one to talk to.
James Dowling is an undergraduate creative writing major (BFA) currently in his junior year. His work has previously appeared in the Sandpiper Review.