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Lisa Lane, US Women’s Chess Champion, playing at the Marshall Chess Club, NYC in 1960.

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justines.table

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someday i will teach

myself to write

a poem again

and it won't be about you

or the years

we wasted dreaming

about our future

while forgetting

to water the flowers

so one day they just wilted

away erasing

our existence

no, when that time comes

i'll be writing about something else

perhaps, not one about the war,

or the inflation,

or the rising heat index

i will try my best to write about

anything that does not capture

the stars in your universe,

the bubbles of thoughts floating

above your head,

the wind kissing

your hair, the rain gently gliding

in your porcelain skin

i will forget about the way

you made me feel

along with the memory

of how truth

became the first

casualty of a war

we didn't ask for,

a war that ruined

the taste

of heaven on my lips,

a war that created

waves of differing heights

and tenacity

i'll forget about the dreams

we buried beneath our fallen city,

the unread text messages,

the unpublished reels, drowned

in the echo of grenade raining

the afternoon sky, cries

of dissenters swarming the streets

like flies, shrieking out "freedom!"

oh, freedom,

when will i...

forget about everything

and write about cicadas,ignore

the ashes and screams filling

the air as i watch your head explode,

a watermelon being run over

by a truck!

i will teach myself

to write a poem that

doesn't immortalize you

however, everything

that you were stains

my hands with red-

a dark, raging

shade of red

-flowers wilting,

katie, 05/12/24

Photo lifted from:

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dear universe,

how many oceans will

you create,

how many tidal waves

before you realize

i am a mermaid?

-i evolve to survive every circumstance, katie