Serenity/Parsed
There are three strangers that I’m gonna love for my whole life: momndad, you, & God.
God I actually love imagination: me as chubby secretary getting plugged by you, Hugh Grant.
Granted I’m not into sci-fi & find it difficult to speak sentences that aren’t adjacent to me,
but meet me where I’m at, isn't it alien? The way you have no interest in counting the
thick hairs on my scalp. Did your mind doctor tell you about menial tasks? Rote? The serenity
they seem to evoke. And the two seater windows, you better keep them rolled up when I to-
ot. Control as a synonym for care. I’m more the roar than hug of a bear, it’s hard to accept
that some choices, like tying your shoelaces to mine, have consequences. The gag? Unlace the
pair. See if either party still stands. If, when left alone, I imagine myself to the tracks. Things
as able to kill as trains need supervision, and that’s why it weirds me out, the way I
was left to roam in malls. I’m an unleashed child grown to a kink of handcuffs. Key, I cannot
detach from the two morally ambiguous locks that I will resent for my whole life: us, change.
Meghan Sullivan is a poet, teacher, Long Islander, and lover. Currently living and working in New Orleans, she is the runner-up for the 2022 Andrea-Saunders Gereighty Award and an Associate Editor for Bayou Magazine. She is pursuing her MFA in Poetry in the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. You can find her work in Ellipsis, Peauxdunque Review, and more.