Bitter

By Skylar Nipper

I think I’ll always be black coffee

And the number 47 and half-fallen-apart shoes.

I think I like driving cars that never quite work right

And jump and sputter in the engine every morning

And hold the smell of smoke in fabric seats

Like they’re trying to breathe it in themselves

Because those cars feel like the year 2017

And 2:45a.m. and music made in the basement.

I think I’ll always be 2-day-old eyeliner

Because sometimes you learn to carry

The cold metal weight of the world

Like a child soldier holds a gun—steady, practiced,

Like it’s heavier than it should be,

And you know somewhere deep down

That part of that weight

Isn’t coming from the world.

I think I’ll always be playgrounds at night

And cigarettes on a balcony,

But maybe someday I can be yellow balloons

And popsicles from the ice cream truck, too.

Maybe I still sip too much caffeine

And curse words fall through my mouth

Easier than they should, and maybe I still stay up too late,

And sarcasm is a little too common, but

When you’re holding the gun, you have to know

When to be hot rage and when to be cold apathy.

I think I’ll always be black ripped jeans

And wide-grid fishnets, but maybe someday

I can be sleep before dusk and wake with birds,

Colorful sweaters and hot asphalt on bare feet.

But for now, I’m still stray dogs and

Chain link fences begging to be jumped.

I think I like the dusk in fall

Because rain colliding with ground

And earlier late hours and overcast worlds

Feel like softening sun and final cooling

And pumpkin basket trick-or-treating,

And it doesn’t feel like humid suffocation

And summer break and house-not-home.

I think I’ll always hate the man

Who made me the smell of sweat in a concert venue

And stems at the bottom of a still-smoking bowl,

But permanent ribbons of concrete inside of

Cracked high-school-art-class clay hearts

Don’t have to be total solar eclipses,

Which means that maybe someday

I can be black coffee and 47 and

Yellow balloons and popsicles from the truck;

Poster-covered walls and chipped nail polish and

Morning fog mixed with sun and

Homemade sandwiches after swimming,

Because a car that jumps and sputters

Is still a car that travels.

By Skylar Nipper