By: Jo Varnish
A text will distract me –
your text
Any text though, really
We begin with a text
You hold my hands and
we sit on the pier
Fog rises from the water and
we measure out our words
with care, to ensure
that we feel like a story
Stories aren’t real
Open your legs for me –
wide,
you whisper
and the thought dances down my spine
I do everything you ask
Open your mind –
you whisper,
no, not that wide
Sometimes there’s silence and
sometimes you sound weird
I don’t like your ideas,
But I don’t say that
Did I tell you I wanted this –
us?
Maybe I did, probably.
Can I change my mind?
No, you’ve decided,
but you call it fate
It’s over and it’s my fault
I can’t keep my word
I can’t be trusted because
I can’t commit
But sometimes I like to text you –
still
Provoke a response and
relive the story for
an hour or so,
I’ll drag my indifference
across your scab and
feel the rush of emotion ooze out,
while I wait for something real
or more real.
Having moved from her native England aged 24, Jo now lives in Maplewood, New Jersey. Her work (short stories, interviews, reviews) has recently appeared in The Bangalore Review, Necessary Fiction, [PANK] and Funny Pearls. Last year, Jo was a writer in residence at L'Atelier Writers in France. Currently she is studying for her MFA and working on her novel, and can be found on twitter as @jovarnish1.
"I am always interested in the interplay of different flaws and needs in relationships. Specifically, how difficult people can be to the ones they are close to while justifying it to themselves. The fictional relationship depicted is riddled with miscommunications, and ultimately it can't sustain itself. Neither party is wholly right or wholly wrong, this is just what happened when these two characters shared their lives for a while."