qarrtsiluni

by Andy Pokel

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Andy Pokel is a recent graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota with a degree in vocal music education. He currently works as a Tour Actor/Director with Missoula Children’s Theatre. Andy spends his free time writing music and poetry.

You, leaning against
the stall, eyes half closed
as if you’d blacked out
in the middle of a piss,
and me, on the cold
tile floor like a teenager’s
abandoned newborn.
You read poetry
with passion and a slur,
you said you’d been
just like me and promised
I’d be just like you
before long.

I blinked up at you,
taking in the mingling
odors of stale urinal cakes
and cheap vodka, the light
that seemed to flicker
as you swayed in and out
of its path, your bloodshot
eyes begging for and
forbidding my judgment,
and the room echoed
with everything I almost said.

by Andy Pokel

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They lie scattered
along dusty windowsills,
their half-moon corpses
like white crosses
on the interstate,

and we, who are drunk
on survival, who are as small
as we’ve imagined ourselves
in nightmares, need

to know that they didn’t feel
any pain, that their tiny lives
were worth living, that they died
in search of sweetness.

by Andy Pokel