justin and i are sober now
\nmegan got hit by a car
\naidan got a cat
\ntwo cats, maybe, I\u2019m not sure<\/p>\n\n\n\n
two years ago we were a balloon
\nmy chest is smaller now
\nmegan lives at the ER
\njustin tells us he retired<\/p>\n\n\n\n
romanticization of a moment
\nis looking backward through a telescope
\non April Fool\u2019s Day – everything is too hard to see clearly
\nand you end up with a black eye<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so much of life is jumping
\ni\u2019m not sure what that means
\nbut i think it explains why
\nwe came up with the concept of faith<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if a metaphorical fire goes out
\nit symbolizes an undesired end
\nif a real fire goes out
\nit prevents the forest from burning down<\/p>\n\n\n\n
megan tells me she will dance again
\nand i believe her
\njustin says to call if i ever need to talk
\naidan looks happy whenever i see him<\/p>\n\n\n\n
if i\u2019m being honest i\u2019m not sure how i feel
\nabout all this \u2018getting older\u2019 stuff
\nbut i\u2019m glad i made it long enough
\nto have a chance to figure out how i feel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
you can\u2019t hold anything
\nonly let it run through your fingers
\nanything that gets caught
\ninherently becomes different the moment it is<\/p>\n\n\n\n
you can\u2019t put a cool spring wind
\nagainst your skin, on a fire escape
\nthat makes Buffalo feel like Brooklyn
\nin a facebook memory<\/p>\n\n\n\n
hell, you can\u2019t even put it in a poem
\nlife is like one big inside joke
\nto get it
\nyou had to be there<\/p>\n\n\n\n
i\u2019m not sure what i\u2019m trying to say
\nother than that you can miss
\nthe flames that burned you
\nlong after you got smart enough to put them out<\/p>\n\n\n\n
justin and i are sober now
megan is traveling again
aidan bought a house
time changes everything, even your friends<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just Buffalo teaching artist BENJAMIN BRINDISE is Buffalo-born and Nairobi-based. He is the author of the chapbook ROTTEN KID (Ghost City Press, 2017), the full length collection of poetry Those Who Favor Fire, Those Who Pray to Fire (EMP Books, 2018), and the short fiction micro chap Secret Anniversaries (Ghost City Press, 2019). His poetry and fiction has been published widely online and in print including Maudlin House, Peach Mag, and The Marathon Literary Review. He tweets @benbrindise <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" justin and i are sober now megan got hit by a car aidan got a cat two cats, maybe, I\u2019m not sure two years ago we were a balloon my chest is smaller now megan lives at the ER justin tells us he retired romanticization of a moment is looking backward through a telescope on … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-tg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1814"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1816,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1814\/revisions\/1816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}