flinch

Kyla Guimaraes

flinch into the future + suddenly it’s three hours past night + my head feels like smoke: orange, a
foghorn, airplane landings + my edges are all fuzzy as if I’m talking to you again. “where did the
time go?” I ask the sidewalks as if their cruel square edges have something to tell me: a secret,
twice over, a mystery number whispered to the host of a late-night jeopardy show that I
watched with my grandpa, perched on one of the cinder blocks by his lounge chair. the city
lights are dark in the reflection of the television screen but I'm not in the city anyways, am I? +
suddenly I realize that I’m just in a dream + it doesn’t matter if I slip on the shiny blue tiles of his
bathroom floor until I’m parallel with the shower chair + my hair pools out languidly around my
head in pretty waves. I’m reminded of consciousness by the soft thrum in my chest that solidifies
into a beep of a heart machine a voicemail that I have not read a crackly crinkly voice all wrong
on the telephone telling me telling me that grandchildren are grandchildren are—

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Kyla Guimaraes is a young poet and writer. Her work has been published in or is forthcoming for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, The Ekphrastic Review, and Moss Puppy Magazine. She always loves a good knock-knock joke.

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