Thorp

The hallways still smell like

milled flour and fresh paint

From where they covered up the last tenant

and her late nights

and her spilled wine

and her towering creatures

humming odes of creation

her dried flowers

with one single monarch

her beads and feathers still

stuck in the ether

along with some nights

I'll remember forever

after the crowd thinned

we walked by

one of the more useful pieces of decrepit furniture

we touched its' broken keys

filling a space of passing quiet

between parties
before turning the corner

to where the walls

are all covered

and just one of us was left dancing

so we found the back door

where the kettle bells instructor

who I knew by his drink order

requests a new band for pandora

someone yells “Megadeth!”

“no, a real band”

he says

then they settle on Prince

from three blocks away

I could hear a small squeal and a hiss

Then a small roar before

the quiet was ruptured

an engine erupted

the sky was rising up

purple and thunder

behind old infrastructure

that reminded me of our first winter

the seed silo sat

rusted as ever

fading behind visions of

sweeping grainers

we'd climbed up the ladder

and clung to parked tankers

we fumed with green fairies

and screamed for the summer

and

the hallway still smells
just like that, familiar

even without the taste of

marijuana and black licorice

now the ground is cracked

where it used to be wet

and mud is still splashed

where rain droplets lept

there used to be a crow

on the corner

near where she slept

since then,

they painted over it

at least the trees
never stopped leaning

toward their impermanence

they held vines of pink flowers

then lost all their leaves

they bathed in warm showers

then carried frost with a heave

they hang in the moonlight

talking spirals
in rattles and squeaks

whenever I listen

I still hear them speak

they tell me about

the softness of cycles
the only truth that comforts me

the smell in the hallway

that taste in my mouth

the sensation

distinctly belongs

to me.