by Lauren Silex
In the Practice Room
The truth always wants to be told.—Melissa Febos
I wanted what my hands
could play, bite marks
on my tips from guitar strings.
I could spread my fingers
like thighs on porn videos.
Stretching, separating,
is painful. I focus
on position first,
hold it, scrunch my face.
I get what it’s
supposed to sound like,
and I’m loud and clear
when I play,
even the accidentals.
accidental.
My guitar teacher
hated that word.
“They’re intentionals.
Those notes
are not mistakes.”
I also wanted to be a choir kid.
I liked the practice rooms,
white cinder blocks
were counterweights to
voices slung by diaphragms.
I would’ve loved the challenge being
an Alto 2, seeing how low I could go
like limbo like confusion
like when
my friend Alison,
a choir kid, wanted me to feel
her pectus excavatum. My hand
went down her shirt, dangerously
close to grazing her breasts.
At lunch, I snuck to
the senior cafeteria, to be
with her, together
like two forks unsure of their owners.
We’d touch each other’s thigh to see
who would flinch first. Always me.
Once, I got halfway up her midthigh,
but relented before she flinched.
I was always the weaker one.
She had me down.
She sensed my body never lied.
She loved to arouse the truth in me.
I wanted more practice.
Alison and her boyfriend Kyle
had a hot and heavy session the day before.
“What did he do first?”
She pressed me against the wall in a practice room.
It was dark, only enough air for a trill, a whimper.
Too chicken for the high note.
I went lower,
my hands on her hands on my hips.
I broke free and spun around.
“Like this?” pressing her against the wall.
“No, you’re doing it wrong.”
Holding me down again and again
touches stacked against me
triceps shuddering vibrato
heart beating a raunchy rhythm
or was it panic?
The practice sat heavy on my chest.
I didn’t have the endurance or lung capacity,
not then, not now. I’m still not ready.
Another name is new in my mouth,
I practice saying it over and over.
One day, she’ll say “I’m here.”
I Write You Love Notes Because I Can’t Say I Love You
I love how you leave
the cabinets open.
Actually, I don’t. I wish you’d close them.
But it’s nice
you don’t want to make it
hard for me. It’s hard to open up,
for me to say I’m hungry or
I’m hungry I don’t know
what for or
I know I just ate but I want more or
I haven’t eaten all day or
I’m hungry but I need to
look like I’ve had enough.
I closemy mouth. I write
love notes because I can’t say
I love you. I write I love
you, fixed and forever.
I don’t like how mouths change
shape and breath, words sound different,
which can signal a change of mind.
I always want to be accountable.
My love notes are checks that will never bounce,
I work hard, and get paid well. I write them on
subscription cards in your magazines
grocery receipts voided checks index cards cardboard boxes
everything. Sometimes,
I have to push a little harder.
I don’t trust myself to say
what I love.
Of all the lovers you’ve had who loved better,
looked better,
cooked better,
were funnier,
had softer hands,
had everything,
except you
You choose me.
You kiss me.
Why
they never wrote you or called,
I don’t know, but
you left your husband for me.
I changed my life for you.
Why do you love me?
It scares me
you want want
more than plenty.
Sarah Kersey is a poet and x-ray tech from New Jersey. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Hellebore, Mortar Magazine, Ghost City Review, The Harpoon Review, and elsewhere. She is an Associate Editor of South Florida Poetry Journal. She tweets @sk__poet.
Baltimore artist Lauren Silex comes from generations of creative family. A concern for the environment in 2008 finally her to cut paper collage and the use of recycled materials in her artwork. She uses storytelling to illustrate how the natural world interacts with and is affected by civilization. After applying acrylic paint to a wood substrate, Silex meticulously cuts and glues hundreds of pieces of paper from old magazine pages, atlas pages and coffee table books, etc. The piece is then embellished with detailing in ink and oil pastel. The result is multilayered and rich with meaning. Silex graduated from Prince George’s Community College and the Maryland College of Art and Design. She has had solo shows in Los Angeles and Baltimore, and her work is in several private collections around the country. Published on the covers of the Free State Review, The Mighty Line, and forthcoming issues of Palooka and Gone Lawn literary journals, her collages have also been awarded Best in Show and People’s Choice in 2019.