Eszter Takacs

There must be another way
Cause I believe in taking chances
But who am I to say
What a girl is to do?
God, I need some answers
– “Overprotected”

The penultimate photo on your Instagram
posted five days ago is pink, like the Pepto pale

of Target home décor. You quote yourself: Stillness
is the key to prayer. The rest is God. Except that for the casual

viewer, the first letters are cut off; stillness appears illness
unless you click on the small days old square and invite

the depth of your zooscopy as tonguethroat, squire
in tulle, the predicate to wielding a court-ordered defense.

I envision so many empty Starbucks cups in your living room,
soft against the backlit brow, star shaped 2007. My friend asks:

but will you investigate the illness, interrogate
the side effects of the medication? Like a lunar eclipse,

I parse the lithium, look deeper into your eyes conveyed
by so many overtones of Malibu and dissent. I’m not even sure

what I’m after: a divine connection, a small pale heart slice?
I’m so bad at reaching out, I convent the yellow outrage,

exhale a crop top, paw at your hipbones like a polite meridian.
This poem: a measure of the darkness hallowed by the sun,

the ghost behind your eyes. Your bangs look hella good though:
a real Louisiana martini, a Baptist’s sinkhole lined with rose petals.

In the space of having written this, you posted twice in reverence:
fruit and veggie plate, a beige boarding scene, reaching for the sky,

arm in Sam’s rapture. Maui fills the girlish gap in your teeth
and you receive 3,000 prayers an hour. Have a safe flight.

None of us are great at multi-tasking this year anyway. 

 

Author Bio

Eszter Takacs is a doctoral candidate at the University of Denver. She has taught writing at the University of Denver, CU Boulder, Red Rocks Community College, the University of Arkansas and Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She is the author of two chapbooks: The Spectacular Crash (H_NGM_N Books) and Together We Will Talk Right Down to Earth (The New Megaphone). Her individual poems have appeared in Yalabousha Review, Soft Blow, Hobart, Apartment Poetry, Alice Blue Review, Nightblock and elsewhere. Eszter also loves painting, roller skating and can be found posting cat porn on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/lemoneszter. Her completed dissertation will serve to examine the plight of the American pop star as a hostage of capitalist greed.