Moving

By Ashley Simmons

It is strange to feel so constantly

the liquefaction of your own heart,

to feel it drip down through the spirals of your ribcage

into conveniently sized boxes.

To feel the sinking of your stomach under

the weight of your liquid heart is uncomfortable

no matter how it occurs

but in my experience it occurs most frequently while

watching documentaries about events you remember living through,

while watching documentaries about events you don’t remember living through,

listening to music that you played so often at a distant point in your life

that even the sound feels as though it is far off,

listening to music that you can already feel the ghost of your future self wallowing in,

while listening to podcasts and spoken essays written thoughtfully,

and lying sleepless in bed after bed after bed unable to sleep

for the weight of yourself on you.

 

Ashley Simmons is a soon to be graduating from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington with an English Major. Ashley has aspirations of going to graduate school and getting a phd in Literary Studies.

More by Ashley Simmons:

A Year