Vagabonds: Anthology of the Mad Ones Vagabonds Vol. 3 | Page 23

Shovana Thulung
Untitled Two
Gaelle Robin
as we crossed the granite footbridge above the charles, he says look to either side, you'll
get a good idea of what you've fallen into. I'd been holding my breath since interstate 95,
since I could taste salt bay on my sandpaper tongue. I exhale, watch a stream of blue
leave my wet lung, cut through the thick tawny smog that coats us and say cityscapes
have never really been my thing anyway. the way these dingy skylines are marred with
unmoving machinery scratching gaps into the stratosphere, pissing cancer into what is
destined to trickle down our throats, what is destined to puddle into well water. not so
sweet is it? my mouth is muddled by the ill-fate that we'll just conform to catching this
shit on our thirsty dog day lips instead of doing something about it.
as we approached the train stop, we felt the roar of the track. I jumped the fence to catch
it, but much to his prediction it was darting off before my feet hit the platform. most of
my lovers will leave me this way. jumping fences without so much as a goodbye or a
decent reason why. perhaps these lovers call me pollution. the chemicals I spill
downstream: how I will chug and chug at the mouths of their rivers until I am swimming
in the oceans I have swallowed for them, choked up before I can ask for low tide,
gawking at perpetually darkened skies. no polaris to guide me home, nor a sun-reflecting
crescent to pull me back and despite the whitecaps in these harbors, perhaps I've learned
to float belly up, to pull myself out of this.
perhaps these lovers will always call me pollution. perhaps I am destined to puddle into
someone else's quench. and how grateful they will sip.
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