by NICHOLAS BALDWIN

I rose before the sun,
before the alarm could croak its ritual reminder
that today will echo yesterday, more misses than hits.

I skipped the shower—
my roommate sleeps, or, more likely,
lies marinated in the soft silence
of a two-week alcoholic relapse.
The stillness from his room is a kind of mercy.

Outside, in the car, the sky offers
a palette of forgiving oranges, and
hope spread thin across the clouds.
But a patrol car hovers behind me too long—
my chest tightens,
my medication untouched in my pocket.

At work, the fluorescent lights are too white,
too clean, too awake for me.
A flock of geese
ambles across the parking lot—
one at the back drags a crooked leg,
and I feel strangely seen.

I make the coffee.
I wait.
Everything feels like waiting now.
Work once had edges,
now it’s all the same soft ache.
I watch the hours drip off the clock
like rust from a leaking pipe.

One more day
of rehearsing the same false stories:
what if, what could’ve been—
but none of it matters.

Time doesn’t rewind.
It lurches forward.
And I,
a cog dissolving
like salt on the back of a slug,
am overtaken with it.

Ω

Nicholas Baldwin is an author and artist based in Rochester, New York, and is the happiest he’s ever been writing fiction novels, poetry, short prose, and freelance for magazines. He has been featured in Avalon Anthology (Jack Wild Publishing), Cabbages & Kings, All Hallow’s Eve Anthology (Wingless Dreamer Publishing), Edible Magazine, Menu Magazine, Kings River Review, and Syncopation Literary Magazine.

Clarissa Cervantes is a researcher-photographer. Her photo gallery includes images from all over the world. She invites the viewer to question the present, look closer, explore more the array of emotions, and follow the sunlight towards a brighter future.