"You can almost chart income inequality over the years by measuring the height of New York's ceilings."
By Angelina Avelino
I. the day we run out of bread
striding through the market around the corner, hand in hand with Sammy.
Lucia waits at home, perched amongst deteriorating skylines
outlining the inequality of our jagged lives.
gripping onto balcony rails, she leans far enough to
catch glimpses of the philanthropic monuments of America.
envisioning an epoch, Lucia will dispel misery as a skyscraper.
“trudging past the frozen aisle, Sammy believes he’ll morph into a glacier.”
hand in hand with Sammy, trudging past the frozen aisle,
Sammy believes he’ll morph into a glacier. adjusting instead
to an aerial craft across Alaska, he waits for me on the other end.
i’m frigid in thought, unable to unravel anything other than
the stinging silence of the apartment we share.
II. i left the loaves of bread on a platter
a slight creak, a single ray. the room reeks of glue
and varnish when he comes home, a kiss on each of our foreheads.
loaves of bread on a platter serve as centerpiece, while mother
obliquely imparts breaking news. wrapping the bread into its pertaining bag,
stuck in cyclical failed attempts of unemployment, she's perched amongst skylines,
a state of inner turmoil that’ll never resurface.
molding the insignificant into celestial lyrics meant for me
and the pearl of the gods above, i’m just a prolific poet
against our barren room wall. under tidal currents of auroral pages,
placing poems in a cache, never finished.
i’m cognizant of the life we seem to be irrevocably meshed into.
tomorrow morning we’ll split the loaves of bread into fifths.
About the Writer...
Angelina Tang is a writer currently studying at Williamsville East High School. She is the self-published author of Birds Playing God, and her work has previously appeared in Cathartic Youth Lit and Polyphony Lit. She would like to learn how to design planners, and her favorite flower is the wisteria.
About the Artist...
England Townsend is a junior at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. She specializes in drawing and painting, but enjoys other forms of art such as printmaking and photography. With each creation, Townsend strives to push her boundaries and explore different ways of producing art. She is excited to keep creating to learn and share her progress with the world.