Fire Water

All this was was the vibe of a smile,
a nod to the past,

an undeniable…anything,
“if I’m being honest…”,

please,
only be that.

There’s a sense of pride when I see myself seemingly present in photographs,
like I had them fooled,

like I got away without them knowing,
but then there’s the picture where I appear gotten,

staring through the camera or a gaze off to the distance,
and I’m transplanted back to that head space,

remembering what I was thinking,
transfixed on what I did or didn’t say.

My middle ground is a slippery slope,
my filter is like those nets haphazardly used to keep our oceans clean,

in waves is how I’d describe my thought process,
and not the ripples of lukewarm water tickling our toes at sunset,

it’s the roaring crash that wakes you up at dawn,
the ones that set off fire alarms.

 

 

Farrell_Headshot_2

 

Kevin R. Farrell, Jr. is a New York based artist, poet, and educator whose work has been published in Burning House Press, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Adroit Journal, Terror House Magazine, Former People, Blakelight Magazine, Visitant Lit, Ink in Thirds Magazine, Indiana Voice Journal, Foxhole Magazine, Yo-NEWYORK!, BONED Stories, Yes, Poetry, and The Writing Disorder. His work attempts to capture life from the vantage point of someone in the backseat of a stolen car running on fumes. His poems are a play on words in the form of political, satirical, surrealist, tongue in cheek rants that often border on stream of consciousness ramblings that are a last-ditch effort at taking it all in before we get taken out.

Cover Photo Credit: Kylie Supski