In the chaise lounge in front of my windows the breeze brushes against my face. I could live like this
forever, I say aloud, except maybe with the ocean outside.
Stevie Ray Vaughan meets me in soundwaves of blues the color of my melancholy.
I swear I’m going to get out of this place.

Beyond my Budweiser can perched on the sill is the ragged wire
fence that keeps the trash from escaping behind the house supported by cinder blocks.
Small children climb their garbage playhouse while adults with weathered skin smoke
hand-rolled herbs and pass the brown paper wrapped whiskey bottle.

My father is supposed to leave me money when he dies, our relationship
as tumultuous as rogue waves was mended only recently
when the air took his breath away and he didn’t have the strength to push me down anymore.

The wind carries the smell of my beer that reminds me
of Dad’s wet kisses that said, see I am a good dad, to his friends on the porch
before he shoved me off to play in the majestic, unwanted treasures on our back lawn.
I swore I was going to get out of this place.

# # #

Bridget Langdon is a second year Master’s student at Illinois State University. She is in the creative writing program with an emphasis on creative non-fiction. Her stories provide entertainment through self-deprecation and/or humor. Bridget accomplishments, while minimal, include a full length article in the spring 2017 edition of Grassroots Writing Journal and both a poem and micro-nonfiction piece for Sick Lit Magazine. She has also been a guest reviewer for Whet [Lit] Jornal and Grassroots Writing and Research Journal. Incidentally, her writing career was more successful when she was nine. She can be found on Twitter under the name @FormerAltruist. https://streamofconsciousness469.wordpress.com 

Photo: Larry Thacker, www.larrydthacker.com