Our conversations have narrowed
What were once wide
And busy highways
Are now dirt country
Backroads, almost
bike paths or walking trails
They are slender streets with
Unlit lampposts
We’ve been reduced to talk of
Cigarette prices and
“How’s your mother been?”
“Good, thanks for asking”
Sometimes I catch you on roads
We’ve been down before
You’ve asked me questions
Three or four times since
I met you and the answer hasn’t
Changed. Our lanes are lacking
Soon I suppose
we will meet a dead end
But when I think of how
Our spacious streets were once
Open and endless, like we’d
Be driving forever,
I cannot stop the car.
Alexa Bocek is a young writer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whose work has appeared in The Claremont Review, Literary Heist, Mystic Blue Review, and Pulp Literary magazine. She’s an editor and staff member of BatCat Press. She has also won several awards and honorable mentions for her poetry, fiction, and screenwriting. She’s been writing for several years and attends the Lincoln Park Performing Arts school as a Literary Arts student.