some days I start to think I’m done
with the whole lot of it
but then again there are so many stories
I haven’t heard yet
and I find myself standing in bar bathrooms
and grocery store lines
thinking maybe
I still need more time
more time to hold hands for hours
on a futon in a tiny apartment
tangled up so long we become one limb
more time to dance in the headlights
of your car by the river on a fake spring night
then swing in the park until we forget
what it’s like to worry about
taxes or to-do lists
more time to plunge off a waterfall cliff
to wait for the sun
to warm the mulch underneath
our bare feet
so much more time to see all the versions
of myself I will one day be becoming
Katie Holtmeyer lives, writes, and teaches in Missouri. She is a pushcart-nominated poet, and her work has appeared in 3 Moon Magazine, Words & Whispers, Stanchion Zine, The Shore, and Jupiter Review, among others. Her debut collection, She Asked Me Where, is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press in early 2024.
Header photograph by Linds Sanders
Header artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson
Vast 