NOTCH MAGAZINE

issues      events      shop 

Blue  Manifesto
    Letter from the Editor

Currents Brice AfonsoWorks in ProgressNibha AkireddyPlaying for DaysJon BennettRoman Candle  Oliver Beatty001: Potential Energy
Playlist
Hayden Carr-Loize and Pheobe Lippe
Cascade, Tooth, Circular Panel  
Sarah Chess
Expectations
Madeline Haze Curtis
Transmission I: spit with sonic weather
Claire Dauge-Roth
Try to Run
Clay Davis
Planning Time Off
Clay Davis
PoemSam ErteltUntitledUgo FerroUntitled, UntitledVitya FitsnerGray Cloud on San Jacinto PlazaDagoberto GilbThe Drunken WalkRobert Pogue HarrisonDead Friend Haunts Man with Mismatched Flip-Flops R. W. Haynes'On ne part pas' disait Rimbaud, FUWA, Journal
Marie Hazard
NorCal Wave (Series)
Eva Hoffman
Carlos y Pablo, agua y espuma, and other paintingsMaría Fragoso Jara
The Ballad of Jeff Bezos 
Margot Kaiser
And the Days Are
Not Full Enough

Lulu Lebowitz
The Many Lives of Energy
Anna-Sofia Lesiv
Douma, Schizein
Chrstipher Lyr
Pristine
Douglas Milliken
Tu es d'une sucrerie diabolique
Mona Neilson
Process of Sculpting Dream, Block-In of a Young ManKaelin PalcuOn the Street, In the Arena
Jonah Pruitt
Letter to You as a Tallgrass Meridian
Maxwell Putnam
Pandæmonium
Matthew Schultz
Spin, Measure, Cut
Molly Pepper Steemson
Untitled, Untitled
Oliver Stokes-Curtis
L'AppesaLorraine de ThibaultDiálogos IBruna VettoriAnonymized LetterxDirt Poem
Rachel Wolfe
Metanoia Arina ZhuravlevaUntitled #11 Arina ZhuravlevaLife as a Work of Art:
Henri Bergson on Possibility and Creation
Clara Zimmermann






Prove That You Can't Stay Crumpled on the Bathroom Floor Forever

Sam Ertelt
    Prove that you can’t stay crumpled on the bathroom floor forever.

Example:

Assume the vinyl stinks of lemon and salt. Assume that it is cold like
a metal pole in winter, wrenching your tongue from its base. Assume that
once I placed my ear against it long enough, I was be able to hear the sea.
No, not the sea. The rumble of a tectonic plate shifting. No. The
scheming of my insides to reclaim everything I have ever given up.
Assume all of this — then forget.

                                                                                                   Breathe out.

Assume I am lying on the bathroom floor. 

Bathroom floor                     = a sheet of ice that has quieted my hot skin
                                              = not having to look at the mirror again.
                                              = vinyl that stinks of lemon and salt
                                              = rougher on my face than my feet ever knew
                                              = easyish to press my hands against
                                              = pushing back against my bruised shins
                                              = getting farther and farther away

Bathroom floor                    = slick like guilt and soap underfoot
                                            = reblossomed bruises on the knee that crashes back down

This isn’t working. Let’s start again. 

Prove that you can’t stay crumpled on the bathroom floor forever.

Assume I am standing. 
Soon I should be able to convince myself

I always was. 






Sam Ertelt is currently an MFA candidate at the Sewanee School of Letters. He works at the duPont Library in Sewanee and assists in the Fencing program during the school year. He has been previously published in About Place Journal.

              © 2024, Notch Magazine, LLC