September 24, 2018 | Occasus | Issue 8 | Poetry
Daylight Saving
The sun now rises at 7 AM
and sets at 5 PM and I’m asleep by 8 PM and by 10 PM I’m in bed and at midnight, I start dreaming so I call you at 1:30 AM and Apollo, ever faithful, you come at 2 AM and I come twice, naming you the messiah, but the sun rises at 7 AM and you are only a nightlight. |
i refused to go skinny dipping
with you.
2:53 a.m., wind tangling my hair and tearing my eyes you picked me up in your arms like a little kid i don’t believe in most things anymore. your skin felt dry against my palms, my fingers gripping your shoulders-- railings i wanted to feel your nakedness against mine in the dark, i wanted to steal your heat with my reptilian body instead i dug my feet into the cool sand, grit scraping against my heels |
(Name Removed), 1996-2014
i visited my gravestone
last night he was wearing an ugly green shirt with polka dots leaning against the bar ordering a vodka soda his cologne hasn’t changed in four years, his beard fuller, more neatly trimmed sharp lines could cut my fingers brushing it in a twin bed at 4:36 AM i used to believe in good things i did not grace him with wilted grocery store carnations mourning in a black crop top and ripped jeans two jägerbombs and a whiskey sour |
JOANNA SHEPHERD recently finished her fourth year of a B.A. Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language and Literature. She mostly writes creative nonfiction and poetry with content that her mother would not approve of. Her work has previously been published in AHSC Symposium.