Where is the Red?

[out of the vault: - 11/1/21]

a quickie poem I wrote in midterms szn :)

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I locked myself away 

For an essay.

If I pull my earbuds out now,

It would only be bags unzipping, pencil pressed to paper, a cacophony of someone else’s and my own typing.

It’s supposed to be a Reading Room. 

Where is the light though? 

A new, shiny, expensive building but even the tables

Absorb light. The spaces between the bookshelves are 

Black holes.

Browns, beige, grays, brown-reds, yellow-browns.

Nothing inspires except what’s beyond the

Rectangle windows not BIG enough

To invite in

the real, fresh, warm light.

From the slivers

I see blue. Baby blue. God, you’re so pretty.

A squirrel finessing the edge of a bright red, orange, yellow tree 

Taller than JMG

Hall.

The tree is so fucking red. 

Catapult me to its branches. I’ll happily bleed out.

I see golden. Like the sweater on me, the one a friend gifted,

perhaps because there's

A sleeve torn that my forearm could slide through easily and exactly half of it frayed--

Plushy, warm, homely.

I want to pee.

I need to write my essay,

Not exist here romancing and fumbling through poetry.