Today - Stephanie Wood

TODAY I got drunk in the shower

turned up the heat as high as it would go before

the water heater ran out, today

I went to a bar with my friends because I never was taught how to handle my rage, today

someone I thought was a friend told me it was fine because

our state still had rights, today

I told him he could go to hell because

I don’t have time to waste anymore, today

I went for a walk to watch the world pass by as if nothing

changed for everyone, I

was dripped on by water coming from windowed air conditioners and

I didn’t know what it was at first, today

I wanted to be with someone, to sit in silence, cry

over lost things and instead we talked about what we could do and I saw nothing, today

there are rallies and protests and I’ve seen them do

nothing, and still there has to be something

but all I can be is scared too

---

Stephanie Wood is a recent graduate of the MFA program at Arcadia University. She is the editor-in-chief at Cosmic Double and was a fiction editor at the Marathon Literary Review. Stephanie is a freelance writer living in NYC with their significant other, a shelf full of houseplants, and foster dogs. They have previously been published in Grim & Gilded, Walkabout Journal, and Journal TwentyTwenty.