I lived that life on the other end
of your father’s
cigarette

it was too many years
and too many steps along
the lines of the manicured grass
who knew every fog
could blacken my
body with the lines
of a train track
?

will we ever forget
the feeling of being
seventeen going onto
eighteen
with red wind and
bleeding gold hands
pulling every passing hour
into a sleep

what do we do
with the cracking ice light and
the melancholy eyes of our
parents

I
just want to swallow
every landscape and
every gesture

I don’t know what I’m doing
all I want you to think is
“her misery amazes me”
but instead you whisper
“I know who you are”

 

 

 

Jessica Chanchalashvili is a student at Sarah Lawrence College. Her influences include Joseph Brodsky, Ilya Kaminsky, and Yehuda Amichai. She loves chocolate almost as much as she loves New York City.

 

 

Cassoday Harder is a twenty-year-old photographer inspired by youth, femininity, and summer. View more of her work on Flickr or visit her website.