I bumped my head once on a chandelier
hanging over the dining room table in our old apartment.
I was trying to twist a flickering bulb back into place.
The plastic diamonds chimed madly
and you let out a quick, nasally laugh
before touching my leg and asking if I was alright.
I didn’t cry, so we drank wine on our dark purple couch
and you fell asleep in a little ball listening to the weatherman
talk about how much snow we were going to wake up to.
The bottle was empty and I was all out of shit to smoke.
A Ken-doll-lookin’-motherfucker on the TV
interrupted the woman to his right and said something
about how afraid we should all be of what might happen next.
I made my way to my feet and staggered back to the dining room
as if I were paddling a canoe through choppy waters. I took off
my socks and stared at my overgrown toenails for longer than I should have.
I climbed back onto the wooden table. Standing up there, the soft glow
from the den licked at my chest like a patient lover. In the dark,
the chandelier looked like a celestial night light — what a small child
might imagine the universe is. I bent my knees and jumped.
Austin Davis is a poet and student activist currently studying creative writing at ASU. Austin is the author of "The World Isn’t the Size of Our Neighborhood Anymore" (Weasel Press, 2020) and "Celestial Night Light," coming out from Ghost City Press on July 7th. You can find Austin on Twitter @Austin_Davis17 and on Instagram @austinwdavis1.