Apples
Someday I hope to make
enough money
so I can afford
pretentiously over-priced organic produce
though I’m not entirely sure
if there’s a palpable difference
between the glossy gleam of an apple’s
red rose-threaded skin
entirely free from insecticides
and that of the deceiving fruit which
destroyed the girl with ebony hair
and complexion akin to snow.
I’ve consumed plenty of
artificial flavors, preservatives, GMOs,
which in retrospect seems to detract
from my health, as if combined it could create
a sort of vulgar sodium-based solution
supersaturated into a thick, pussy liquid.
In spite of this I am alive
…and yet again I am purchasing apples…
I don’t know if my choice of produce has a point,
but until I do I remain satisfied with my blunt decisions.
Hello, Unjustifiable Feelings of Trepidation, Fear, and Guilt.
You linger in my doorway
like unwept tears
in sculpted wax eyes,
and you always arrive at the most
inopportune times.
Like when I’m trying to scan these apples
at the self-serve checkout
and the mechanical voice shrieks:
“Please wait
Help is on the way”
to both myself and the growing line.
Suddenly I’m as exposed as poor Eve
misinformed by the serpent,
believing something so obviously deceiving
and taking the fatal bite into the forbidden fruit,
never even having heard of the term “All natural!”
Screw buying organic fruit.
I’ll plant my own tree.
Carelessness and Coffee Cups
At the corner of a street,
a cup of coffee sat beside
a bench at the bus stop
disposable cup
half empty
abandoned.
A pair of black, plastic framed glasses,
/glasses, not two lenses/
were swiped off the bridge of a man’s nose
and held in his hand as he quietly mourned
his forgotten caffeine in his rush
onto the early arriving bus.
In spite of its owner’s regret,
the lukewarm drink still sat, complemented by cream,
sweet cream, maybe half-and-half, or
frothy milk with the texture of clouds,
an ethereal match for the nutty bitterness
of the dark roasted coffee beans because
opposites attract and attach
and now it’s no longer black coffee
and the purest of white milk,
but a latte, cappuccino macchiato, or
some other exotic sounding name.
A couple came to the corner
/couple, not two individual persons/
and in their hurry to catch the next bus,
knocked over the cup of coffee beside
the bench at the bus stop
disposable cup
empty
abandoned.
The beverage gravitates to the cracks in the pavement,
blends with the mud in the grass.
It’s no longer coffee with cream,
but a mess to be washed away
by the oncoming storm.
Elena Rielinger is currently a senior attending North Royalton High School near Cleveland, Ohio. Her poem “when a certain song plays” has been published in The Noisy Island and her poem “For Orlando: 6-12-16” is forthcoming in Sprout Magazine.
Visual Art by Ben Cruz