by Casey Reiland
My coworker asks, “Wanna hear something funny?” and describes how he was hit by a car. I find his indifference to the ruthlessness of our job equivalent to the shock that comes from salt stinging a wound: a searing white space. Me: “Aren’t you ever angry?” Him___. When we fuck later, a barren plain glaciates between us. If I’m being honest, I mostly wanted to sleep with him because he is ___ years older than me. Age specifically has a distance. So does trauma. I’m afraid of driving because I’ve been in a car that spun into a cornfield. I was thirteen. My friend’s older sister was driving us to a Halloween party. The coarse dying stalks revolved yellow-green-yellow in my vision, and all I could think was, I’m going to___. In the mornings after the world has shut down, there goes the yellow-green-yellow-green in my mind. I text my one friend, What if one of us___? How do___? I’m so___. Later, my roommate reprimands me for almost wearing sandals to a protest at the White House. When the tear gas blooms a sulfur mist, I let their shaming engulf my legs as we run, grateful to have someone unafraid in their bluntness. I tell my mother what happens, and she says, ______. My coworker insists he only wants my body, and I let him have it because this is the year where I cough up shards of ice, where inside my mouth is a killing frost.
Casey Reiland’s work has appeared in Autofocus, HAD, trampset, On the Seawall, and elsewhere. She is a recent graduate of the University of Wyoming’s MFA program. She resides in Somerville, MA, and you can find more of her work at caseyreiland.com or her latest musings at @caseyreiland.bsky.social.
Emerge Literary Journal 