Three Poems By Mary Ariza

Why I Don’t Go Out Anymore

I don’t remember
the conversation or
the drinks



I remember
the humidity of the streets
rising up and touching my skin
and the puddles on the sidewalk
soaking my bare feet
while my heels
hung on my finger and
my red cocktail dress
hugged me gently

I remember
the sky spinning
faster than a carousel and I tried
to find the Big Dipper but
I couldn’t even find
my keys and then someone was
asking my name.

I remember
the smell of cologne
cracking my lungs
and hot breath
sticking to my neck
and the warm brick wall
burning on my bare shoulders
and I wanted to be
anywhere, anywhere
but here.

Only Child

There’s a jacket on
the hook and a sandwich in the fridge
that’s wrapped in tin foil
waiting to relocate
to a brown paper bag
being clutched by small pink fingers

and the shoes sit next to the front doorway
but the laces remain lifeless
as they lay across the hardwood floor
and his mother tells him to please
tie your shoes for the hundredth time

but he always forgets 
because there’s baseballs
to catch and bikes to ride and
books to read but he has
a whole stack of untouched
library books on his nightstand next to his
empty bed where
the sheets have never been touched.

Abandoned
 
The snow wraps
the ground in a freezing embrace
and the snowflakes sprinkle
the branches on the barren trees. The gray sky
buzzes with a murky tint,
the thick clouds swirling
like tufts of cotton candy.
 
She presses her nose
to the frosty windowpane that
burns her skin. Her dog,
asleep on the faded red rug, whimpers
quietly in his sleep, his paws
twitching frantically.
 
The fireplace’s embers
dim to a faint glow, its crackling
fading into the background, along with the hum
of the refrigerator and the
plopping sound of water droplets falling from the faucet.

Mary Ariza is an emerging writer living in Chicago, Illinois. She loves to write realistic poetry about difficult topics that are often stigmatized or ignored in public discourse. She is a graduate of the University of Houston’s creative writing program, and has previously been published in Glass Mountain.