Watch the Paint Dry

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Laughter and people-pleasing cutthroat trout

Smoked wood intervenes my tongue

A Hydra of alcoholic fruit punch


                                   Carry the illustrious Mendenhall Glacier


Sazon and Adobo-hear my mother curse

Crisp fall leaves on a foggy morning


Bottled water to satiate cheap blue raspberry flavor

                      Off father's tongue, his soft cotton shirt


                               Eating bacon-wrapped biscuits at sunset

                               Mangonada energy drink pulse through my veins

                               Sweat dripped down my back in the club


                      A mystic morning in a canoe on a lake I refuse to swim in


The stitch of a Blue Jay baseball cap

Something you yearn for but can never have

elliptical galaxy-the lookout in Alaska where I learned to be small

Overcast sky and fresh rain upon Dall Sheep


Sweet chili pepper with a hint of tomato

Cerulean-The door closed without me


Grapefruit juice on the rocks



SJ Larsen (they/them)