As If I Conduct Myself Like The Cabin//Kaitlyn Crow

It smells like pine needles, smoke, the sweat of a few missed showers;
sounds like late night cicada noises, crickets calling out to each other;
looks like unencumbered moonlight, free and bright.

Silent of electrical humming, of human urgency, of the need to be, to do, something.
You never realize how loud your life is until you remove yourself from it.

Behind my eyelids, I hammer together the cabin that hosted hunting trips
for Smithson men—where I’m told my father, a boy,
peed off the porch and rolled “ain’t” off his tongue—
a cabin I’ve never seen but can picture so clearly,
like I know it, an old friend I can coil my body against
to rest.

When the day squeezes too tight, I turn out the overhead light,
take in the anxious push and pull of the city,
imagine Orion’s Belt on the other side of the neon signs—
as if seeing the stars might make the rushing stop,
slow down my heart rate,
breathing,
mind.

As if I could become as steady as four simple walls and a roof overhead.

As if I conduct myself like the cabin, the ringing in my ears will go quiet.

Kaitlyn Crow (she/they) is a queer writer based in
Charlottesville, Virginia. Their work has appeared in Door Is A Jar,
COUNTERCLOCK, and Screen Door Review among others. You can find them
on Instagram @kaitlynwriteswords.