Kate Porch
I stare at my laptop
and start to think my eyes will redden,
dry out, like the seed-pod corpses
of a lignum vitae
cracking under the sun.
Do you think the thing they call
“purpose”
appears like a web ad
in flashing green letters:
CLICK HERE,
or is it the pen
that was in the bottom of your purse
under mint wrappers
and crumpled receipts
all along.
Do you think I’ll find my calling
in the LinkedIn classifieds,
or just stare
until the screen’s light bakes
my face into strips of clay.
I string up my eyes, ears, heart,
shed years like snakeskin
and offer them to an idol
called success,
while your bones crack
somewhere
under the knobby feet
of a grandmother tree.
Between you, cadaver,
and me, gray cavity
of an oyster shell,
I forget which of us is the dead one.
***
Kate Porch is a 23-year-old daywalker and writer from Miami, Florida. She holds a degree in Creative Writing from the University of Central Florida and her work is forthcoming in an issue of Black Fox Literary Magazine. Kate currently lives in Thailand where she is working as an elementary school teacher. She is enamored with faeries and ghosts, and is always searching for eclectic bars and cafes to haunt while she works on perfecting her latest drafts.