A
Arlathina
Guest
"I am straddling the line between elegance and frenzy."
Tick Tock...
by Isaac James Flores
As my grandmother entered
old age,
she developed dementia.
Doctors said it was brought on
by cholesterol build-up
in her brain.
She lost interest,
as many dementia patients do,
in nearly everything.
She would sit, doe-eyed and complacent,
asking me for the fifth time to
what was on the news or
reminding me for the fourth time to
feed the cats.
Her skin was pallor,
almost translucent.
She was made of glass, delicate and pumped full of toxins
like the cigarettes
that she smoked;
only a third of the way before crumpling
and throwing them into the yard.
Minutes later, she would spark up another
and try again.
One sweltering afternoon,
I came home and asked her what she was doing.
After a second, she replied, "Waitin' to die."
To most, it would seem cynical,
but I thought my
brain-clogged,
coffee-breathed
grandmother made
tons of sense.
A few months later
her wait ended.
And now, I stare at the crippled cigarettes
in the yard,
stark against the yellowed grass.
I stand by as the cats go hungry,
bloody claws ripping at one another
for a single scrap.
For the first time,
I sit and wonder what to do
to pass the time.
Planes of Silence
by Isaac James Flores
The stars have stopped their whispers.
I am left with the weak—yet incessant—beat
of my fractured heart.
I no longer speak to the wind,
nor share secrets with the trees.
How sad it is when their leaves
speak words that can be learned with ease.
I don't know what changed,
humans rarely do.
I am crying again,
but I can't say for what, for who.
Maybe, for everyone
that I have ever known.
For now-silent planes, stars, leaves—
all that once was home.
Drunk and depressed,
bathed in something else.
We try to care, to heal, to help—
couldn't cure ourselves.
Tears,
mine or theirs,
are worthless
when
no one really cares.
Untitled
by Isaac James Flores
I remember,
searching amid the greenery
for the bright yellow petals
of the flowers
with the soured stem.
I remember,
our faces puckered
and we all laughed
under the happy, blue sky,
knitting together
wreaths and bracelets
of dandelions.
Now,
the sky isn't
blue,
and those stems aren't
soured.
Maybe it's because,
we are.
A Fine Fragrance
by Isaac James Flores
He wore a cologne
of shameless lies,
false promises,
and I inhaled deeply of it.
I used to love the way
my bed would smell
when I knew he
had lain there.
Even my own clothes reeked
of the intoxicating miasma,
flashback to a scene of me picking
my old shirts out of the laundry
just to take one more breath.
Thanks for reading. It means a lot to me. Feel free to tell me what you think.
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