Travelog by Lindsey A K Appell

I. KEY WEST: on thinking about emotional numbing
while taking a shit in a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom
 

Compelled to tell

you everything, bury 

you under my shame

Confess with eyes straight ahead

Recite memory, recollect

in tranquility what feeling

felt like


I have this quirk

a natural resistance to pharmaceuticals

which means an overall dullness

a lingering pain

an unfamiliarity with that euphoria that should replace it


I have this tendency toward a dreaminess 

a need to reach fabled heights in another’s hands 

that I can never

never allow again to seep into my self-expression


and yet

you


silly, these stories we tell


Nurse sharks account for a large number of bites

because they are sedentary 

lazy cuddling beneath the docks

the scary-cute things snorkelers approach

with assurance of their harmlessness

stillness so often mistaken for invitation

 

II. AMSTERDAM: on having a mental breakdown 

on the platform while waiting for the train to Paris

a human fingernail on faith 

assume fewer microbes 

than a cat’s claw but maybe

prefer blood curdling

in veins to wearing madness

on the face


no cat ever left

a scar


What is it about a missed train?

don’t miss

step




these tracks cannot bear

this sort of weight


Meet at Les Deux Moulins.

Smile.

I saw a statue of Jeanne d’Arc


at Versailles today


III. UJI: on cormorant fishing (but not really)

Ancestor moss

cannot grow here

this bloodless desert


Remember the last tea

tree growing by 

the rails

Remember the hands

the chisel


I wanted to be her soft thing

not too heavy to carry

desire inked and folded

delicate beneath

a sleeping head

not this

faded scroll

encased in glass


We hunger to snap

off sweetfish hooked

mouths to the boards

of the hull


but do not

and wonder

who made that choice

who

held back the tongue’s 

starved plunge


“These poems were written on three separate occasions while traveling, and I toyed with and ultimately scrapped the idea of putting together a collection of poetry-written-while-traveling. This was not quite “travel writing,” per se, since it was usually just gay inner turmoil surfacing while I happened to be traveling, and hence never really felt like it would have a place anywhere.”


     Lindsey A K Appell (they/she) is a queer writer currently living in Washington, on the traditional homelands of the Coast Salish tribes. Their work is varied and can be found in ANMLY, Tarpaulin Sky, The Graveyard Zine, Marrow magazine, and even James Joyce Quarterly. Find more of her work online at lindsaka.com.
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At the I-10 and I-295 junction in Jacksonville, Florida, After the Lights Went Out & Just a Moment (remembered so vividly) by E.C. Gannon

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Untitled by Anthy Strom