by Carella Keil
Please Remember Me, My Misery, and How It Lost Me All I Wanted
-after a line by Iron and Wine
I can hear my miseries muttering in the other room
while I watch the floor refuse to move. They
think there’s something wrong with me that isn’t
them. It’s embarrassing. They make excuses
to sneak out. When the smoke clears from
the dirty oven, I will tell you a secret no one else
knows. It has something to do with the proper
baking temperature of root vegetables, specifically
rutabagas. When it rains, be careful with the morning
or else it might fall apart like drenched paper. Sometimes,
you’ve got to just watch things until they firm up.
This is pretty close to a universal truth, except
it was never translated to Latin. Many things predate
the smell of her hair, the taste of her sweat.
Soup. The memory of absence. The tedium of despair.
It will only get worse. Someone will regret you
the way you regret her. Someone will taste your
neck and feel at home while you look only
backward. The real truth is that the more deeply
someone gets to know you, the less they’ll like
you. This includes yourself.
Raised on a rice and catfish farm in eastern Arkansas, CL Bledsoe is the author of more than thirty books, including the poetry collections Riceland, The Bottle Episode, and his newest, Having a Baby to Save a Marriage, as well as his latest novels Goodbye, Mr. Lonely and The Saviors. Bledsoe lives in northern Virginia, with his daughter. Find him at https://www.facebook.com/cort.bledsoe/.
Carella Keil is a writer and digital artist who splits her time between the ethereal world of dreams, and Toronto, Canada, depending on the weather. Her art has appeared recently on the covers of Glassworks Magazine, Colors: The Magazine, and Frost Meadow Review, and is forthcoming on the cover of Straylight Magazine. Her art has also been featured in Skyie Magazine, Existere, Burningword, Chestnut Review and The Field Guide Poetry Magazine. instagram.com/catalogue.of.dreams twitter.com/catalogofdream.