
Lake Erie
Written by Maren Antinia Krizner
21 years old
Lemont Furnace, PA
Big lights overhead, hot tar beneath my feet
burn, please burn me, so I might feel the rash
cold breeze of a moment without wondering
if my happiness is palatable, packaged under
a new name. Americanized.
I took the messages you left
and put them with the others.
You are my first aid kit,
I am your tourniquet.
If I’m unhappy, I’m certainly not going to say so.
On our last trip to Erie,
you got quiet, and then you asked me
to put the camera down for once.
There is a world where I told you I never learned how to skip stones,
and so you sat down with your shoulder pressed against mine
and spent nearly half an hour teaching me.
Burn me, please burn me.