exercises in entropy

Kaydance Rice

i am coloring black ink boxes
over love letters and describing what it feels 

like to be trapped in the sublime. we are colliding
stars turned into supernovas turned into two 

a.m. mario kart tournaments and screaming 
lana del ray until our throats ache. laying on the concrete

driveway and pounding our heads into it. 
i pressed a wilted rose between your old

notebook pages but we didn’t think 
it was soon enough to call it forgiveness. 

when we became collisions i burned my finger
on the stars and you called it a lipstick stain 

like the one you saw in that movie but you can’t
remember the name of it. i can’t remember

the name of it but it was something almost 
sublime. when the gravel covered our hair 

you always said it reminded you 
of the smoke. it makes me feel 

like i’m covered in stardust.  we sit under 
pomegranate trees drinking a 24 pack of mountain

dew from the corner store mixed with your dad’s 
leftover smirnoff and we’ll pretend to call it 

beautiful. i swear to god it’s so fucking beautiful 
that i forgot how to breathe. i remember when you threw 

me your spare pair of lolita glasses, smiled and told 
me about how black holes are made. through aching,

wandering stars waiting to collide.

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Kaydance Rice is a writer from Grand Rapids Michigan and is currently attending Interlochen Arts Academy. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Ice Lolly Review, voicemail poems, Cargoes, and Exist Otherwise. In her free time, Kaydance enjoys playing the viola, rambling about existentialism, and spending time with her plants.

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