Fred Aiken Writing

explosions that look like soda blasting off through the midnight sky

as citrus drips from veins made from vanilla dreams

caressing unguarded moments to be shared alone

off the shore of some isolated island in the middle of nowhere

as countless invisible particles help define the known and unknown

hiding in the distance

coming with all the baggage never checked

because it’s carry-on,

and no one thought it’d hide the world’s secret shooting through the ozone

living in a manifest destination on the right,

so long the map spots the next turn

into the cul-de-sac,

pulled back, further,

seething fog engulfing all the windows

in an endless night,

sleepless fights, punched into memories from above,

below, each side, and wherever that sound is coming from,

let’s not dally,

let’s not dilly,

time to catch the moment in bed without an answer for its infidelity

nostalgia posing as a venerated position masquerading for musicals playing

on repeat for festive scars

still held hard in hippocampus mutilated by gallons upon gallons of

hard liquor sounding just as the first date rotates in cryogenic stasis,

all limbs and no thumb,

if you catch the drift,

though if I did, then perhaps I wouldn’t be in the awkward state

of deciding which frozen dinner tastes better with pinot grigio,

as if that mattered,

since I’ll still eat whatever with whatever drink I have,

but it’s still nice to pretend I have taste

in the middle of my life,

though who’s to say when I’ll die,

perhaps tomorrow,

perhaps never,

but I’ll still have leftover memories