[ZOE REAY-ELLERS]

Text Messages Sent from Traverse City to Hong Kong

Delivered 2:18 AM, EST

 |Sometimes the distance burrows
 |into my top-left-rib
 |because I can’t stop
<thinking

 |about seeing your fingers
 |splayed around a cup
 |of tea, fingernails
<bitten, maybe

 |jagged little half-moons
 |hung, weeping
 |at a hot mug, fingerprints
<molding back

  |into place
  |after quickly tapping
  |once. twice you told me
<that piano was an art:

  |ivories stretching
  |from week to week
  |but I play organ, riffing
<on appendixes
 
  |and appendices. ACGT,
  |TGCA, thread my paper
  |cuts above the space in-
<between, spacebar,

  |where’s my space-
  |suit, I want to steal
  |your crescents. Too
<bad, too far, you

  |and your ten slivers,
  |silvers, slip-up? I can’t
  |even scuba
<dive, deep-dive

  |into what-ifs, wikipedia instead
  |because sometimes I wonder
  |if time-travelers
<can be trusted, time-

  |zones, trains. twelve hours
  |behind, I’m tired
  |of being
<late, last place

  |is for losers,
  |am I losing
  |you? Here: critical failure
<turned fool
  
  |or massy mess
  |or messy mass
  |don’t go, going, gone
<this isn’t grand

  |piano this isn’t
  |perfect. Please
  |listen, I want to hear
<your voice.

[about]

Zoe Reay-Ellers is a 17 year old writer from Washington State. She edits for a host of literary magazines, and her work has appeared in a number of different places, including The Blue Marble Review and The Eunoia Review.