1/8 of a tank
1/8 OF A TANK
by nicole kuwik
after arriving late to a party and
holding my very
intelligent
friend’s hair,
we are sitting
in a yellow
upstairs room
“My highschool teacher died scuba diving
in those caves, he
ran out of air”
“They found a bunch of
19 year olds in there,
they found them holding hands”
someone makes a joke about rigor mortis,
and I have to excuse myself,
the kitchen is white and the knives are still
on the cutting board as I breathe into
the box of space between the refrigerator
and the wall
for a minute, it’s blue and it’s white and it sparkles and
I am not
alone.
Awesome poem ms. Kuwik. Senseless death stuff (that is not, in effect, senseless, if that makes any sense) gets me going and thinking about purpose in life, God, ‘the plan’ , all that bad-luck and consequence sort of thing. Apt title with poem that has true poetry in it that one may read over again seeing different details and connections. Nice touch! Colorful too (using colors proficiently, i mean)! Thx for sharing ma’am!
I am reminded of anxiety attacks and subsequent xanax overdoses. I’ve almost died twice in the past few months, so this hits home. Good work.