Revel 5

Jackie Donaldson

The sky is livid
in his eyes.
I ride the recoil
of my Revel 5s,
get lost in reverie.

The drop ceiling is crumbling.
White chalk debris settles
on the plastic stack
of turn-in bins
like a dusting of snow.

Students file in
to the peal of the bell,
heads down,
too immersed in their scrolling to bother
looking up.

I uncap the black marker,
turn my back
like my ex did when he left me
cracked along my seam,
like milkweed.

He only had time
for piano lessons,
Taco Bell delivery,
and God,
so I kept my eyes peeled

for something to restore me
to my former self,
and convalesce
those old wounds
that never closed.

The first time he left,
I literally counted the days.

Prayed
the way that godless people pray
(only when we want something)
for a sign

that I was moving closer
to the half-life of my pain,
the remission
of my prison sentence.

The second time,
I took up running.
It was like learning how to swim:
I did it afraid,
formless,
gasping for air.

I ask my students
if they ever feel like Odysseus:
he’s just trying to go home,
but it’s taking ten times longer than it should,
because someone always has it out for him.

The afternoon is suffused with bluish light.
The sun sinks lower.
I turn the corner,
zip down the sidewalk.
Steve Lacy, in my ear, sings
new boyfriend ain’t gon’ fill the void.

What is a rebound,
but two people
reaching toward each other,
to heal some broken part of themselves?
My new boyfriend fills my void

and frames every poem I write,
sets them on his end table,
like an altar to me.
Says things like,
my biggest regrets in life are my failed engagement,
and moving back to this place.

You will feel better
when you actually move on,
I want to say to him but can’t,
because some of my ex’s shit
is still in a box inside my closet,
addressed to the place where he used to live.

Awash with sweat and moonlight,
I breathe coolly through my nose,
strike the pavement with a steady cadence.
The curbs are lined with cans
because it’s Tuesday.

A lamp is strapped to my chest
by a neon-yellow elastic band.
Its beam is reflected back at me,
by the eyeshine of the trash cats.

I watch myself,
in the shiny gleam of the white dry erase board,
transform into this bitter, angry, person.
From my mouth comes the sound
of my own dad screaming
at my fifteen-year-old self.

She
sits in the back,
carves up the margins
of her spiral notebook
with a fountain pen,
didn’t do the homework.

My first pair of road running shoes
had a black mesh upper,
with a teal overlay and midsole,
a hot pink outsole,
and hot pink laces.

In the beginning,
I would run for five minutes
without stopping.
Worked my way up to twenty.
My ex left in May.
I was running seven miles a day
by September.
I would lace up my shoes at 4AM
with an obsessive dedication,
fueled by fear,
delusion,
and watermelon pre-workout.

I set off down the road,
every cold, black morning,
the way Stephen King
probably sits down at his typewriter,
smokes a cigarette,
bangs away on the keys
like a madman.

It’s been ten months,
three academic quarters,
twelve hundred miles.
Haven’t heard from him.
Odysseus gets home eventually.

For twenty years,
Penelope waited around.
Couldn’t be me.
Odysseus was not immune to Circe’s potion,
Odysseus was just a pig all along.

Jackie Donaldson writes poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has been published in The Vehicle, Loud Coffee Press, Across the Margin and others. Connect with Jackie on Instagram and Twitter @Jacquiverse.