An arts magazine at the University of Pennsylvania
Between Time | Red Road Trips
Between Time
Priya Bhavikatti
Red Road Trips
Emily Maiorano
New Years Eve, in a red tinsel harness
After twelve red grapes of luck
He hung upside down from my hands
With a bloodstone between our palms,
He says people who love me speak through him:
“Plant flowers that go together.
You can’t plant a tomato
next to a strawberry bush
Just because they are both red.”
He puffed red smoke off of the dashboard,
Red was once the color of halos, he says,
All of the gods’ thousands of hands were warm
But their fingertips were gas blue.
Eating pancakes without hands,
He has a wallet of red autumn leaves,
But some are still in the in-between green.
He says:
“Anything that falls was supposed to
at whatever exact time it did.”
I ask if we can sleep in the kitchen again,
With the eggshells and brown sugar,
He tells me it is time to go.
Every time
I have seen this boy fight with himself
Somehow he has never won.