Mailbox Full - Haley Fisch

Oh hi,

its me just calling

to check up on you it’s been

like maybe a week? But

feels like maybe a year. You turn your back

like a flipped coin. I’m just waiting

for the bus, the one down by the creek

the ducks are calling to me but I left all

my pain at home and besides carbs aren’t good food

for ducks I wish I had some grubs, larvae, worms–

you’d have a granola

bar something with dried fruit

from your back pocket left over from that picnic

we never went on because the rain kept us home

locked upstairs trapped under our sheets–

(not that I mind being trapped with you.)

My sheets still smell like you from the

other day I don’t know if you remember you secreted

sex pheromones and deliberately rubbed up against

all my floral sheets and heart-shaped pillows now

I go to sleep with you creeping into my nose

and my big dumb brain projects your image onto everything

I see behind closed lids.

I wake crazy.

And I think you stay away on purpose let me work

myself into a frenzy until I’m foaming-at-the-mouth

rabid so you can put me down

like a stray.

I’ll be home soon now,

inside that old badger sett I described

to you when you once again

weren’t listening so good luck

finding it–

(Hint: Follow the sound of desperate keening

as I wrestle with the part of me that’s feral. She’ll

smell like pine needles and crab apples fallen

to rot on the grass.)

Anyways,

call me back sometime between

now and then.

---

Haley Fisch lives and writes in beautiful british columbia, where the nature around her bleeds into her work. She writes both poetry and prose, tending towards fantastical subject matter. A creative writing major, Haley hopes to share with future generations the joy she found in creative writing.