Restless at night, Carson wished

he was someone other than himself.

Carson eavesdropped on the voices

of conflicting motives in his head.

Elissa loved him, and that’s better

than anything else.

He shifted his pillow and looked

at the ceiling, but envisioning Elissa

and her deep green eyes that sparkle

when they miss him.

He tossed the covers off his body

and stumbled to his feet.

Carson moved to the window and spliced

the blinds with his fingers.

The sun scaled the sky,

and his flaws climbed the horizon

of his loved ones, whose ambitions sank below the murky lake.

Carson convinced himself that Elissa’s disconnected phone

was because she couldn’t pay

and not that she had changed her phone number

to avoid contact.

“I love you,” Elissa said.

Elissa and Carson had dated for five years.

She made him laugh.

They’d been an item since meeting on TikTok five years ago.

Elissa and Carson exchanged messages,

leading to their real-life meeting.

They’ve been together ever since.

“I love her so,” he’d say in his sleep.

Carson’s self-esteem leaks through his ears,

but his empathy for himself glows like bombs

exploding in the Middle East.

It makes sense, like clockwork.

Life set him up, robbing him

of his flaws because

they don’t like what they’ve created.

Carson caught loneliness one night

and wrapped confusion around its neck.

Thick, dark clouds hid the day’s bright rays.

Carson observed a gem-blue stream in the forest.

It was seeping and dribbling

as it swerved through tall

stacks of evergreen trees.

Carson threw grief into this lake of misery.

It nearly killed him last summer

when an undercurrent

pulled him beneath the surface,

of white, rushing lake water.

Carson drowned last summer

and had it not been for an undercurrent, he’d

have washed ashore.

The freshwater awakened

his will to live.

He was one paycheck

from getting evicted.

The flowers on the kitchen

table withered with their age.

Carson snapped out

of his self-pity and told the voices

that hell wants them back

because life is love.

Carson lifted his gaze, shielding his eyes,

and smiled at the cloudless sky,

holding Elissa’s hand.

By Andy Cooper

From: United States

Twitter: AC0040