some months are not worth putting weight on
slippery-devils prefer to be submerged
over hitting an iceberg
summer however is a tether staked
in remembering
in the natural glow of the dying july sun
orange was everyone’s color
my racing legs only held their sprint
when i was the seeker, not the hider
barefoot and barreling
through night-stricken
forbidden forests
pursuing streaks
of tattling light
leapfrogging over logs and ducking
under branches
chasing the fading laughter and listening
for when it stopped
scaling trees to the skies
for a glimpse of the top
where time
was less cynical
less cauterizing
less categorical
if I had known,
i would not have just explored the unknown
i would have left behind a
ribbon trail just to cut it down
and cast the rest ablaze
(luckily, i still have
fire and time on my side)
Cold Case
There was a person I knew who loved to shout "Snow!"
in Spring, and smile as everyone crowded the windows
like it was a looking glass. Deflating back to their desks
when they realized some people liked to watch the world burn.
No amount of cold could bury the heat of that memory.
Your body was a cookie-cutter mold, and I was wet cement.
You left tread marks on me, like blood in the snow, I could retrace
you to a wounded animal.
I duck and out-maneuver stray branches. Hopping to avoid the fallen
ones I couldn't get a hold of, remembering you used to grab
two at a time out of the air. I shake the winter from my socks
on the welcome mat, and instead of racing to the hot-
chocolate powder mix, letting you take charge of the microwave
I step into a cold shower. The water cascades off my shoulders like hail
and I savor every second of the fleeting illusion of a winter wonderland.
Re-ed·u·ca·tion
Middle School teachers are mediums. I should know, I was a ghost in 7th grade. A test sheet in my Civics classroom went missing from Mr. Cardwell’s desk. Everyone turned their eyes toward me with their small pupils. They never saw me moving things, but all the teachers reported me as the type with hands made for stealing. At least that was what the referrals said.
Who else would take the blame and
turn it inwards for a bit of attention?
I was no more alive in High School. Until I was home and in my backyard, I would trace the line of Cypress trees to the swamp. The ones that you can only harvest when they're dead. I would climb them to the skies and my eyes turned into kaleidoscopes. In nature's color, I unlearned my teachers' black-and-white lessons. I was no longer drowning in a sea of red ink. Where all they saw was that I was choking. My feet were grounded, but I was flying.
Taya Boyles is a writer based in Richmond, Virginia. She is currently a senior pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English at Virginia Commonwealth University. Taya's publishing journey started at just eight years old and has come a long way from misspelling glue. Since then, her poetry and flash fiction has appeared in literary magazines such as Split Lip Magazine, Vermillion, Pwatem, The Rye Whiskey Review, Hot Pot Magazine, Radical Zine, and more.
