Amalie Kwassman

Why the Sky Went Blank

The therapist said
she had a glassy                                                  
                                    heart
and everything made it                                        
                                                break.

When that man from down the block
littered her                                                         
                       body
she fell                                                         
                        apart.

Her grandmother would say
there are more popular things than              
                                                                                    dying.
So why don’t you eat some crackers or watch the               
                                                                                    sky. 

All this talk of suicide and crackers made grandma hungry.
Then Grandma would suggest she drink ginger ale 
                                                                        depression was like a cold. 
After the phone call, grandma wouldn’t talk about this 
                                                                                                again.
There was just a note from the man
saying to stop trying to add him as a friend on Facebook.
And it was only one night but he is in Georgia now.

Her grandmother did not understand 
how one man could 
                                    hurt
her so bad and make the sky so blank
                                                            and devoid of stars.

Amalie Kwassman holds an MFA in Creative Writing and the Environment from Iowa State University. She also has a PhD in Rhetoric and Professional Communication from Iowa State University. She is an Assistant Professor of English at Montana State University-Billings. Her work has been published in Ruminate, Salt Hill, the minnesota review, juked, and elsewhere.