Sinking
by Sarah Kolbasowski

 

it begins at the top

where all is taut and stretched,

secure like tightropes.

 

there is a sense of safeness,

the impossibility of gravity

actually showing its natural face.

 

but soon the bottom turns into

the top, the top turns into

the bottom and your feet

 

have room to swim. your

shoulders are touching each

other and your arms make

 

a squeaking noise as they slide

down slowly, like honey. your toes

are sucked in and there is a

 

sucking noise making a small

symphony with the squeaking,

your fingers are wiggling, brushing

 

against it, disappearing inch by inch

until there are no wrists and there

is no waist and there are no elbows

 

at awkward angles and there is no

you, no me, no humbling balance,

no breakdancing guilt near the corn

 

flakes and the party invitations. you

are into something now. underneath

all of this, we are waiting.

 

SARAH KOLBASOWSKI received her BA in English from Rutgers–Douglass and her MFA in creative writing from Long Island University. Currently, she teaches composition and literature at both Montclair State University and Kean University. In the past, her work has been published in a number of literary journals and she has a chapbook forthcoming from Blue Leaf Press. She has studied at Naropa University's Summer Writing Program and last year was awarded a fellowship from Summer Literary Seminars.

t o p
short story short stories poem poetry fiction nonfiction non fiction flash fiction creative writing publish publisher photography