Author: Shyla Shehan
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Self Portrait with Modern Man
“In line for a number but you don’t understand.” Arcade Fire act one: we wake once again with opposable thumbsfumble with the pickets and prescriptive linesrearrange the display for passers-bywho are too dumb or too drunk on necessitywe’re given a gift but we’re wasted, so we waste it act two: we look in the mirror…
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Cure for the Common Equation
I swallowed heaping teaspoonsof forgets-where-it-has-beenand stacked little orange bottles fullof does-not-know-where-it-is-goingon the grey marbled kitchen counterfor tomorrow. Neither were expected to have an affecton my current conditionwhich I was certain had no earthy cure.The mind is a well oiled,finely tuned machinedesigned to want to solve for X. Solutions require removing variables.Hence these two.These tooare being…
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Concourse B
I stare down a mirrored polished hallfrom a seat at gate 25 in Concourse B—space that harbors all the emptiness of blank paper.My eyes close around a thought as the mind rewinds.There was a crack in the pavementI tripped on once. The sidewalk goes onand on and we walk side by side or alone. There…
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finding the river
Yesterday I was outside myself watching at water’s edge,wanting to know dark knotted wood, snarled heartof split oak, a pliable tangle of maple and birch bleachedon the bank—set free by nature’s rage. My eyes grippedthe storm. Something mystical happens in a turbulent river—rush of sediment over rocks, driftwood pieces rippedfrom resting places collide, tumble end…
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Trapped In Line
She had no voice of her own to lick the woundsof her offspring—sprung off and over the cliff.One by one, like lemmings, they follow in line behind a leader who found their place behindsomeone else who learned as much as anyonehow to play a game from those who came before. And someone else before that,…