Shadow Puppets by Arden Falker

"Distant View City Tower" © Eartha Davis

Overcommitting to the lines I used to use

Like an actor who never lived the part. Now I’m stuck

inside my head. Where the city sleeps and I just

repeat these days to decompress who I was

when I was yours and you were living in the moment—

for a minute we were who we could be

when the world fell away and we stopped

to pick up the pieces we became. Before another

stoplight caught us in the act and we fell

apart beneath the screen—peer pressure—

we used to believe we were different.

Not just kids stuck on how things used to be

when we were happy chasing dreams

we never quite knew how to catch.

Beneath that neon sign where we’d bum cigarettes

without asking permission for things we took

for granted. Just a kiss of young love waiting

for a drag that never quite lasts long enough.

Lights slowly burning out as we caught

remnant galaxies. New worlds awakening

with each touch, a little innocence wearing

off from the backseat of a Mustang. Contortionists

making shadow puppets beneath the stars.

When all I could do was hold your hand

and guide you back to me in the dark—

before you slipped through my fingers again.

ABOUT:

Arden Falker is an emerging poet from rural Minnesota who explores the fault lines where memory, place, and language collide. His work appears in Mania Magazine and is forthcoming in The Phoenix, The Chimes, The Unhoused Anthology (Prolific Pulse Press), Rundelania, Lovecraftiana Magazine, and Slash Magazine.

POET'S SONG SELECTION: City Limits - Cursing