Be it to deserts, water, tumors, guns or lungs that quit working—those gone are gone. I talk to headstones and wonder if I’m crazy; when I talk to people about crazy things I feel sane. Sometimes my tongue seems foreign and won’t form the right words. If eyes are the soul’s window, then are lips its door? I have kissed, perhaps, two dozen people. Eight years ago I married, so the number quit growing. To stop growing is to die a little. There was a stray cat I read Shakespeare to when I was younger. It would rub against my legs and lick at my fingers. I was reading it Hamlet when animal services came for it. Euthanasia is a nice word for murder. What keeps me breathing may be more luck than reason—my life has been threatened by three different men. Remember, accidents happen, one of them told me. For a while I imagined how it would end. The world is so full of possibility. Often, at funerals, I don’t know how to behave and I am still learning how to say goodbye to those who can’t hear me. 

Kelly Jones grew up around Raleigh, NC and currently calls Burlington, NC home. During normal times, they work in libraries and arts outreach and education, but these are strange times, so lately they’ve been catching up on their reading list, rearranging everything in sight, and hanging out at home with their dog, their spouse, and the houseplants. Their poetry can most recently be found in Epigraph Magazine, Ghost City Review, Peach Mag, and Reality Hands. www.kellyannejones.com