During the dead age,
I spent the silent moments fantasizing
about climbing inside the abandoned water tower,
slipping my wasting body through the space between
the beaten down iron bars and crumbling brick.
The one we went through with such ease
in an act of rebellion defined by privileged youth.

How I longed to strip off my winter layers
and overindulge on the frigid Wisconsin winter air.
Watch the frost scrape me apart layer by layer.
Find a way to finally hold on to the suffering thing and name it.

This is not me calling down destruction from its holy place,
nor an attempt to repaint the grayscale in vivid technicolor.

But to say
here is where I began.
Here is where I grew.
Here is the stalling,
the jump,
the restarting.

# # #

Rachael Gay is a poet and artist living in Fargo, North Dakota. Her work has appeared in Eunoia Review, Daily Gramma, Literary Orphans, Freezray Poetry, and The Bookends Review. Read more here.

Photo: Matthew Feeney