Issue 45.1

I Have Decided

by Holly Day

If you don’t talk to someone, if enough time has passed between conversations
that person has essentially disappeared. They’re just gone. 
It’s not like when you leave milk in the refrigerator for too long
and it gets sour and chalky, or when you forget to pay your bills
and the electricity or the water get shut off. If you forget about people
they turn into something else and fade away. 

There is a drawer in my bedroom full of postcards and letters 
from someone I’m forgetting.
Sometimes, when I walk by the drawer, I think I should open it just to see
if the stacks of correspondence are still there, or if they’ve been disappeared
by tiny mouse teeth or by the sheer force of my disinterest. I imagine them 
fluttering against the wooden plane of their confinement, like single-minded moths
determined to remain relevant, determined to exist.

ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ the Author

Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Analog SF, Cardinal Sins, and New Plains Review, and her published books include Music Theory for Dummies and Music Composition for Dummies. She currently teaches classes at The Loft Literary Center in Minnesota, Hugo House in Washington, and The Muse Writers Center in Virginia.