[Annie]: 415.Poetry.Personal Favorites.The Smell of College

The Smell of College
by Annie T.
Non-Traditional Sonnet

I’m moving on a moving sidewalk
And the grass is definitely greener over there –
In front of me under the man
Whose breath is drowned out by cigarettes.

I’m drifting on the moving walkway
Whose mechanics are made of organics.
I love it like the tracks of a vacuum on a carpet –
That smell of freshly cut grass in the summer.

The mirage I see in the exhaust makes me cringe.
It’s not an oasis, but a dead man I see.
His skin is dripping off and leaving bone behind –
Clean like the smell of lotion on their hands.

It’s death on their breath on the grass on their hands.
I’m oozing through the fingers of death, as are you, draining through the strainer of death.