I Study by the Candlelight of My Ex Girlfriend, When I Move to My New City I’ll Join a Gay Kickball League and Pretend I Like Beer
I am on my way to being a hot shot lawyer or a burn out by 23, a different girlfriend once told me that not everything is worth a poem. LSAT questions, professor recommendations, the way my expensive study course is definitely taught by a lesbian. The candlelight catching to a match my friend got at his aunt’s wedding, the baby she’s expecting in May, the carefully curated living room bookcase posted on Instagram every few months, as if we could forget. My Joan Didion collection in someone else’s house, the organized meet up to get my stuff back, saying goodbye to my favorite sweatshirt of the past seven months. My mom’s recipes I cook in a new kitchen, my inability to ace a chicken thigh, the burnt meat rotting in my garbage. My sister’s new life, my sister’s fiancé, my sister’s house. The fear of being forgotten, the act of forgetting, the journals I read once a year to remember the hurt. The pickle brine, the act of brining, my alarm clock waking me up at 7:40 am to be a capitalist. Corona in my throat, Corona in my cup, Corona in my stomach. The first girl I loved moving to the River Arts District, the second debuting her sleeve of tattoos on Instagram, the third asking me for coffee whenever she gets the chance. The taste of green apple Hi-Chew, saying goodbye to my Grandad for the very last time, my dog going blind and starting to bite feet. Isn’t it worth it?
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Niamh Cahill is a recent graduate of Kenyon College, where she received distinction for her Creative Writing Senior Thesis. At Kenyon, she served as Editor-in-Chief of the college’s first and only chapbook press, Sunset Press, and has had work published in Spires Magazine. Currently working in law in Washington, D.C., she is continuing to write and refine her craft outside of academia, exploring how the rhythms of everyday life inform poetry.
