by Aaron Seabolt-Barringer
Specs of glitter sparkle across your face,
entangled in your hair,
across your exposed chest,
trapped
in your
sweat.
Dear god, never let me shower again.
Specs of glitter collide with with the sunlight,
floating through the air like
fabulous
grains of sand
in a desert storm.
Your lonely hands grab my suitcase full of
nothing
and you carry it up the stairs.
I look down from the third floor balcony.
This is never how they write about it in books.
This isn’t how you see it in the movies.
The leaves scatter across the ground like they are racing to see who can
decompose first in the blanket of winter,
so white.
Like glitter floating through the air,
in the sun light,
in the strobe light,
entangled in your hair,
stuck to your exposed chest,
sweating.
god, never let me shower again.
I never want to wash away this moment and only remember it,
you,
all as it once was.
The music keeps playing,
the lights keep flashing,
the glitter keeps floating.
We keep dancing.
You smile at me and I can see your
tongue
waiting
to trap me
in your
venom,
injecting me with your
glitter.
All as it once was.
And so it goes,
and so it goes.
Aaron Seabolt-Barringer is a graduate student in the Women’s and Gender Studies department at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is a lover of reading and writing, ocean waves, candles, animals, intersectional feminism, spending time with his husband and dogs, and most importantly, coffee.