Caleb Hipple
We sit around my lack of medication
and a bonfire begging to be pissed
out. Can’t even prop my feet, my decision—
the desire for warmth somehow a discussion.
I ignore how my parents dismiss
change, unless it’s in a foot.
The fabric sky pinholes over
as I leave, long enough to visit
their kitchen to investigate
where the wine corkscrew is, CBD tinctures,
pill cups, the ongoing KidsPeace bills—
my younger self earned us a diagnosis: depression
in a psych ward, and the anxiety is general.
Back then, my parents fed me steak with a pill
and the two frothed like nuclear fission
from me to the toilet. What’s a choice
without options, sour as vomit?
I’ll flush my mind and eyes and voice,
and clarity ever-fleeting will be my sole vice,
I’ll live kneeling and submit
to a decade defined
by adverse head and stomach motions.
Drawer closed, back outside, I recline
to watch them watch the outline
of my foot grazing the fire of undoctored revelation.
The Tributary 