Annie Przypyszny
Always Lonely &
Big Blue Pool
Always Lonely
Always lonely, living
in this big clean house
with a thousand rooms,
all of them empty
except this one,
which has a mean lamp
that slams its light
against beige walls.
Last week I sent a letter
to everyone on earth,
inviting them to come
exist beside me.
No one’s responded yes,
no one no. Just
a mailbox filled
with abandoned cobweb,
one mummified fly
in the center.
A dismal prospect:
to be left uneaten
by what you were designed
to nourish.
I’d let myself be eaten.
I’d let myself be anything
if someone asked me
with their warm, vital voice,
because right now living
in this big clean house
is like living
on the moon,
where legend has it
an ancient man dwells,
and he does,
he’s my neighbor,
but he never talks
to me.
I want:
that pitcher of lemonade
glowing like a lantern
on her wicker table.
I am very very lucky
and I have a lot of things
but I want that lemonade,
the ice cubes
floating, clinking,
lemon slices spinning
in cool yellow light.
She doesn’t even drink it.
I want
to not drink it
while I sunbathe
by that big blue pool.
I have a house
with spacious rooms
and stainless steel,
but I don’t have
a big blue pool,
nor a pliable board
to dive from in a chic,
aesthetic arc.
She swims
like a stream of silver,
like a long silk scarf.
I am lucky.
I have many things.
I cannot swim like that.
Big Blue Pool
Annie Przypyszny is a poet from Washington, DC pursuing an MFA in Poetry at the University of Maryland. She is an intern at the DC Writers Room and a reader for Bicoastal Review and Barely South Review. Her poetry is published or forthcoming in Bear Review, Grist, Sugar House Review, Tampa Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, The Shore Poetry, Soundings East, Poor Yorick, and various other journals.