either / or
after elliott smith
he died on a tuesday of a literal broken heart. it’d be poetic if it weren’t so tragic. this good suicide, the swansong of a modern-day cato, and you. you’re strong or stubborn, brave or bored. your father sensed weakness in you, which is to say he feared the things that make you beautiful. you, who tills the soil and rotates the crops. you, harbinger of ultimatums. looking out from the basement, you silhouette against glass-stained black. but there’s a moral hidden somewhere under all this narrative, a needle in the hay, the explanation more alchemy than teleological. i figured you out: you’re a satellite of cosmic melancholy, constantly orbiting your grief, and always either one magpie, or four.
Natalye Childress (she/her) is a Berlin-based editor, writer, translator, and sad punk. Her poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net and appears or is forthcoming in Querencia Press, Frozen Sea, Silly Goose Press, wildness, and elsewhere. She has an MA in creative writing, and her first book, The Aftermath of Forever, was published by Microcosm Publishing.
