person Kari A. Flickinger, one poem

Kari A. Flickinger‘s poetry and short stories have been published in or are forthcoming from Written Here: The Community of Writers Poetry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Ghost City Review, Eunoia Review, Riddled with Arrows, Moonchild Magazine, Quiet Storm, and Panoply, among others. She is an alumna of UC Berkeley.

/

Misophonia

You broiling repetition.
Each little sound is
too much to take today.

I want to be the crook
of a tree branch
with a silent

swish. I have
to be locked
in space, instead.

I wait
only
so many days.

But, nothing ever occurs.
In this space
nothing ever occurs.

In my head everything is trying
to occur all at once—the big bang

has always been that moment of delay.
Nothing occurs. Sound waits for

space to catch up. Measured
folds do not quite match up.

If I screamed out here—every
fleshspine would fill
with roarsound

in my space. I need
headphones to cover inside
sound with strings. Cover chewing

and television—the expansive need
of internet

with the touchless nature I cull
from inside this glass ball, inside this glass

earth—that is—repetitive motions
and swirls through dust expanse

quiet this remorse. Screaming
dust is nature. Not the loud chewing bear

or the electron-driven conjunctions. Not the deer
at the barrel or the slicing
of water droplet from leaf—from

tangible skyward beasts—from metal
droning decibels which arch through
molecule-made malady.

All life is loud
repetition. Nothing occurs.

Again, I have been
waiting too long. We have all
happened before.

We keep spinning
digging
on repetition.

O we set our
dust down
on more clay.

Affix shovel. Affix
expansion.

\