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B-Theory of Time
By Jaime Warburton
I woke up convinced I’d been turned
into honeycombed
plastic pods,
each containing a single
piece of me: tibia.
The link to a molar
and root.
Sensation of turning
a key.
You slept next to me,
but it seemed if I put out
my arm, I couldn’t touch
you: you’d be riding the same Russian cross-
country train
that you did at fourteen, fourteen
and running
a fever, sitting next to the first
boy who kissed you,
kept kissing you and your too-
hot skin speeding
up auras of air
while you packed
your tongue tight away,
breathed.
Your fourteen-year-old self sleeps
inside your thirties.
She is stoned and far from home.
She has no idea
that I exist. It wouldn’t
matter. She took
care of herself,
I guess. I took
care of myself, too. But
can I reach in tonight, take
her forehead, fold
her into me, a stranger
here myself. Can her fever
melt plastic. I swear I’m there
now, if I can put
myself together. Help. Teach
me the right code
from your tongue.
Here. It's night: I’m breathing.
I’m waiting for Russia
to end.
Jaime Warburton (MFA, Sarah Lawrence) lives in Ithaca, NY, where she is an assistant professor of writing who does a lot of vegan cooking and sometimes dresses up her cat. You can find her work in, among other places, decomP magazinE, Dark Sky, Word Riot, The Collagist, The Silenced Press, Storyscape, The Broome Review, and her chapbook, Note That They Cannot Live Happily (Split Oak Press). Visit her at jaimewarburton.weebly.com.
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