Member-only story
Can I Rent A Room?
Alone with literature is still alone
It takes a special pain to scissor credit cards
into the sink, a small act of prison panic
during a summer alone in the hills upstate,
in the vacant aisles of a midday grocery store,
in an empty matinee movie theater
where the only other person chooses
to sit right behind me. I’m thankful for
the friendship of popcorn feeding,
the synchronous swimming
of our reclining media chairs. I learned
to tuck in my shirt that summer,
to catch a corporate softball, that city folks
don’t put their used eggshells back
in the carton, that a single person
can drink a pot of coffee during the day,
that alone with literature is still alone,
and when I get the prison I’ve always wanted,
I didn’t really want it anyway.
©️ Trapper Markelz 2022
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