Thoreau Street

Izzy Martino || Fall 2025

My body slumps against a telephone pole, arms wrapped weakly around its firm wooden body. It doesn’t return the embrace. Usually, I would camouflage into the very air I breathe, but tonight, I want to scream my existence from the rooftops. Tonight, I want to curse you all:  you laughers, you criers, you teachers, you friends, drinkers, smokers, lovers.  I’m done watering down my sins. I am selfish. I want to feel blood in my veins and sweat and tears and someone else’s voice for a change. Tonight I want to feel young. Sudden fury bubbles in my throat, and all I can think is that I want to live. I want to live. I want to live, but I have no one to call. Well, I have you, but only because I’m paying. So damn you and your pills. Damn you and your diagrams, binders, textbooks. You have numbed my soul before it had a chance to feel. I don’t want your cold solutions. I want to make a mistake. You have reduced me to static. The road is empty, the streetlights dim, sidewalks desolate. This town spites me. Gusts of wind carry shrill laughter, and when they crash into me, they mock this yearning–as if the gods above have purposely denied me relief. But there are no gods, and there is no depth to my loneliness. I am just alone. I talk to my pillows in the dead of night, I have intimate conversations with my bedside table, and still yet, my body aches with want. I feel old. It’s snowing now. How long have I been at the crosswalk? Feels like hours. The light changes. I cross the street, and I stumble home, because dreaming always has a deadline.