By Nikita Ladd
I ate the heat and it threw me up.
Thought long of the year before,
and came up with little
that was different.
Same place: Brooklyn,
though the streets are always turning over.
Small businesses turned to weed shops,
turned to hollow storefronts
when the cops caught up,
turned to laser hair removal spots.
Same clothes dry
on the same drying rack from the dollar store,
bought for me by a guy I don’t speak to anymore.
Text I sent him after his grandma’s passing
went green, connection burnt off
like a dead end.
Same nice life studded
in sadness. My brother a thought
I fold over and over again,
with no place to put him.
Early spring, I go sit
at a picnic bench by the playground,
and the wind tears around me
something pleasant.
An animal, clawing at me
to notice it, hear it, come to
collect it.
Nikita Ladd (she/her) is a poet, creative nonfiction writer, and mapmaker based in Brooklyn, NY. She is currently an In School Programs and Partnerships Coordinator at the DreamYard Project in the Bronx. She received her BA from Wesleyan University, where she studied Neuroscience and Writing. Her work is out or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, HAD, Hunger Mountain Review, Pornstar Martini Magazine, and Discount Guillotine. She can be found online here: @kita_keeta
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