The Shallow Ends
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GEOGRAPHICAL CURE

3/26/2020

 
                          by Adrian Silbernagel 

The last thing you’ll unpack
is your time capsule,
a shoebox containing
the handful of past
that made the cut.
Large chunks of your life
clog the earth’s arteries.
Even those letters and photos
you recycle reincarnate
as booze ad, magazine, coffee cup,
the way all trauma traces
back to the same first particles,
all language to the same first grunts.
The impulse that drives you
to drink drives your partner to flinch
as you begin your transition
from solid to liquid, human
to hurricane, drives you
from state to state, apartment
to low income apartment. In time
you will learn all the words
to deter unwanted visitors: drafty,
sketch, shotgun, poor
-ly insulated. Enter splinter,
robber, cold, invisible hands
that carry the scent
of leaf decay & trigger
a cascade: house of cards,
house you grew up in,
all your memories
still yours.











​
Picture

​Adrian Silbernagel (he/him) is a queer, trans, sober writer and LGBTQ+ advocate. Originally from North Dakota, Adrian currently lives in Louisville, KY. His first book of poetry, Transitional Object, was published with The Operating System in 2019. His work has been published in The Columbia Review, PANK Magazine, The Atlas Review, TYPO, Painted Bride Quarterly, Bæst, and elsewhere. He writes a bimonthly column for Queer Kentucky called Thinking Queerly, and facilitates workshops on trans-inclusivity in the workplace. He is also a Pushcart Prize nominee, a coffee shop manager, a contributing editor at The Operating System, and a proud cat dad. Visit Adrian's website: www.adriansilbernagel.com

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