Zero Food Waste
Sometimes when I am force fed my NyQuil
I am thrust back to Frost Valley, my arms
carrying my body through the sycamores,
hand in adolescent hand, peeking through the
blindfold, the “exercise of trust.” It’s the one time
I see color in my eyelids, and it’s the one time
my palms are not sweat creased enough where
I need to apologize.
I slouch in the passenger seat, mechanical—
it’s all cursive. Upstate rumbles hit the flatbed,
then the flatbed folds in.
Christmas light panopticon above our
tethered bodies, a boy asks if me and Will
are dating. I say “ew,” as one does, but
my face sort of flushes and he notices this.
We go to eat dinner (chicken fingers, of course)
as the sherbet sky fills the cabin walls fecund,
and I wonder if it really seeped in
that much—unabashedly, doors open—in the moment.
We hit the driveway backing in. My dad doesn’t swear,
a whistle will do. I offer condolences, a shoulder pat, but
my arm doesn’t move.
We curdle in the courtyard to walk a hike,
I think, and we’re at the age where the boys’ hands
cast a bigger shadow when they raise them, brushing
flannel-topped sweaters, catching leaves in the hoods, and
I eye Jack’s for hours wishing my shoulders were
that broad, my arms that quarterback, healthy red freckled arms.
The ground is still offset and the sycamores taunt me, offer
leaves at my foot.
The door opens the door and my flower stem hands
break the windows, whoops! And the slog into bed warms me up until I cough again.
Buzz Kozak is a senior at Purchase College studying playwriting. When not writing for the stage, he writes poetry, which has previously appeared in Dadakuku.