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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.  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 |