because i do not desire to be a road pocked with potholes / but these scowls gouge the path ahead like too many pecking crows / & this is entirely a dream i can wake from if i can just find the right phrase / like i am a kiln & i become a burnt orange / the sounds stretch & yet i am still dreaming / & this stretching does not decide for me it is a lesson in constraint / like when gps coordinates turn out to be wrong / or how i want to build rhetorical arguments from childrens’ balloons / i want to watch them soar & disappear & become just another dot of clear sky / tell me i am like the sky / & lie to me / tell me i am expansive & clear / i need to hear that joyful clouds reach their hands into my chest / because i can feel them inside of me / storming / telling me i am pretty when i smile / i want to be a set of cascading conditions / like a logical proof or the way i am always sneaking away from my fear / tell me i am prettier when i smile / tell me / become a cloud & tell me that when i am pretty / it is impossible to be so empty

Danielle Rose lives in Massachusetts with her partner & their two cats. She is the managing editor of Dovecote Magazine & her work can be found or is forthcoming in The Shallow Ends, Barren Magazine, Luna Luna Magazine, Empty Mirror, Homology Lit, Turnpike Magazine, Kissing Dynamite & elsewhere.