• 16/m/FL

    Corey Van Landingham

    Winter 2025

    How was your quiz?
    Did you finish Heart of Darkness?
    I like that part
    with the playful paw-strokes
    of the wilderness
    or whatever.

    I like that you like some older
    songs the girls in my class
    only listen to The Backstreet Boys
    or LeAnn Rimes. I finished that mixtape
    there’s some stuff you won’t know
    every song made me think
    of you. The last one
    I kept rewinding I know you love
    Kate Bush but I wish it ended
    with her hand in his hand
    there aren’t enough happy endings.

    If you tell me
    your address I can send it
    easy.

    When I sing “Pictures of You”
    I think of you.

    You're so sweet.

    The hurricane was scary but
    we have a generator so
    I can chat. Did you make up
    with Lauren? Do you want to talk
    like we did last night?

    Maybe this summer
    you can visit we can swim
    with dolphins, you can touch
    them, really! They feel
    like plastic and they smile
    and laugh like people. My mom
    took me there after dad died
    and this one dolphin
    stayed next to me the entire
    time, wouldn’t let any other kid
    pet it and you know I know
    it sounds crazy, Hale-Bopp
    and crystals and all,
    but I swear that was
    him pulling me along
    by his fin.

    You’re more Kate Moss
    than Cindy Crawford,
    you really can’t
    listen to them,
    high school guys
    are like cavemen
    but trust me they’re
    just ashamed
    of their yellow armpits
    and they
    we only want you
    to notice us.

    That’s nice your class sent
    my school some clothes
    and food, I’m sick so I didn’t
    get them but Monday
    I’ll look for your lacrosse
    sweatshirt. I’ll put it under
    my pillow, I have a hard time
    sleeping, I just keep thinking
    what if we never meet?
    Sometimes my mind does these
    weird loops and no matter
    how much I tell myself
    skip the track, skip the track
    it’s like I’m stuck on some
    fast ride, like the Gravitron,
    where suddenly I can’t
    move my legs and the panels
    are rising to the ceiling
    except I never know if this
    is the time it won’t stop
    spinning if forever it’s just
    Anna where are you Anna
    where are you Anna

    I know you don’t really like Nirvana
    but did you try listening
    to “About a Girl”? Sometimes
    I do this weird thing
    when the modem is warming up
    and it’s taking a long time
    I like lie down on the carpet
    and I can kind of feel
    the vibrations, like I’m in
    middle earth or something
    anyway that’s how the end
    of that song sounds to me
    when he just repeats I do all
    gravelly until it grinds to a stop.

    Haha you’re right it does sound
    like purring but also maybe like
    an animal getting strangled when
    the dial-up starts screeching or
    what’s that song from your
    away message? Like a cat in a bag
    waiting to drown.

    Anna Jesus my mom’s waiting
    so I have to go in a sec but if
    you keep feeling that way at least
    don’t take the pills you can
    cut yourself or something
    that won’t make you sick, if
    you do it on your thigh
    no one will notice and I’ll
    love you no matter what.
    You know your dad will
    notice them gone and that’s
    way worse than breaking
    curfew and I don’t want what
    happened last time . . .

    Remember what I said
    if you smell it on him just
    say you’re sorry walk to your
    room slowly and lock the door.
    I gave you my number
    but you haven’t ever called
    you can always call me. I’ll
    stay up for you all night
    I’ll call the cops I’ll find him
    I swear to god

    No, I know, I’m just saying,
    I wouldn’t hurt him.

    I can’t even crush those
    white sacs when you
    can see all the tiny spiders
    glistening inside.

    I’ve told you
    about it a few times
    it’s my favorite
    song and I think if you cared
    about me like you say
    you do you’d at least
    listen to it like
    at the mall you don’t
    have to buy
    it or anything.

    Did you get the photo Anna
    sometimes they take
    a long time to download
    and then you have to go
    find the right folder
    I told you before how
    to do this you need to accept
    the file first Anna it’s ok
    I’ll tell you what it is
    it’s a blue heart
    on my wrist blue
    like your eyes Anna blue like
    the Atlantic off Fort Myers
    where we’ll swim at night
    it’s warm enough
    we don’t even
    need towels I’ll slip
    my fingers under
    your elastic bottoms
    and the salt will make
    you gasp in the heart
    there are two As
    and their little feet
    are touching maybe
    the picture will show up
    soon Anna are you there

    Are you okay?

    Is this Anna’s sister?

    I know sometimes you
    use her account
    but you aren’t supposed to.

    Don’t worry I won’t tell
    can you just
    let her know Andy wants
    to talk to her?

    listen you little cunt
    why did you call my school
    I told you I’ve been sick
    they all know me
    as Andrew not Andy who
    do you think you are
    you weren’t checking up
    on me you were checking up
    on me why would I lie
    I’ve told you things no one
    knows and I know all
    about you like what you
    did with your sister’s
    hairbrush and where you
    let your cat knead you
    over the quilt I’ll call
    your dad I’ll tell him
    all the disgusting things
    his little girl will say

    Anna?

    Hello?

    Sorry.

    I’m sorry, I’m not mad
    at you I haven’t been sleeping.

    Are you wearing the cotton
    ones? Can I tell you what I’m doing
    right now?

    I really can’t not talk to you
    Anna, I feel like
    maybe I haven’t been totally
    honest with you.
    That’s actually
    my senior photo, it
    wasn’t taken that long ago.
    Sometimes I think I’m an ancient
    man, not even mortal, that
    I’ve been living for about
    two thousand years and everyone
    I ever knew and loved
    has died but I’m still here
    wandering the empty beaches.
    Did you know Conrad shot himself
    in the chest when he was 20?
    That’s why I said don’t take
    those pills, you never know what
    you will do on a night
    when even though you’ve closed
    all the windows it’s like
    the wind is still getting into
    your veins. And you might go on
    to write something genius, Anna,
    you’re so talented. I’m sorry
    I lied. I don’t think age is really
    all that important, I mean
    Conrad’s wife was sixteen years
    younger than him and I’m
    sorry I’m so sorry.

    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA
    ANNA

    ANNA!

    please
    ANNA

    Okay, Anna, you’re right, that’s what I love
    about you, you’re so perceptive and intelligent,
    you have this really mature outlook on life,
    like when your sister stained your favorite skirt
    but it was the first time she got her period
    and you didn’t yell at her because she was crying
    and scared, and you brought her an Eggo waffle
    with peanut butter and told her to lie down
    while you rinsed and rinsed your little skirt
    clear of blood. I know you’re only a sophomore
    but you should start thinking about colleges
    where you can be in a small, discussion-based
    course, you’d thrive in something like that,
    where you can’t put your head down
    on your desk in the back because your dad
    was yelling late again. If you only had a little
    more accountability, someone who would
    make sure you had finished your reading,
    who would ask you some hard questions
    about what you really want out of life, about
    who lives inside you past the Anna you
    project, because I’ve talked to the real one
    and she’s a wonderful human being.
    So I don’t live in Florida. But the part about
    the dolphins, and my dad, that’s real,
    I promise. I still have the photograph
    they sold us after. And I do live with my mom—
    it’s just more that I take care of her. She sits
    in this green chair all day, it’s not a rocker, but
    she kind of scooches it back and forth
    so the living room fills up with this soft
    rasping, like how your throat felt when you
    had mono last year, all close and tight and
    it would be pleasant if it didn’t hurt so much.
    I do go to school, too, in a sense . . . I teach
    AP Lit and I adore Conrad and I think your
    idea about what they buried in that muddy hole
    was actually really smart, I hadn’t ever thought
    of it like that. I have this theory. There are so
    many people, and so many books—think
    of all the pages, every single sentence
    that exists right now—and I feel
    like the mass distribution of the novel
    put us all in these little capsules, flashlight
    under the covers, door shut. Don’t get me
    wrong, it’s transport. And you and I
    don’t always belong in the right-now.
    But then you get to the bottom
    of the last page and it’s like the dark
    starts filling up the room. My theory
    though is this—that there are these moments
    where only two people in the entire galaxy
    are reading the same word on the same page
    at the same time, really reading, leaning
    into the rubble and vise and steep slope
    of some font a stranger chose, only two
    lambs corralled, together, time and space
    tensile then, and they touch in some
    strange syntax of the mind. I can hear
    the rasping, it’s getting faster, which means
    I need to go get the gardening catalogue.
    It’s our little routine. She can’t remember
    much but she loves to hear me chant
    the heirloom bulbs into the room.
    Trumpet Daffodil King Alfred. Chinese Trumpet
    Lily Golden Splendour. Cyclamineus
    Narcissus Tete a Tete. Small Cupped Narcissus
    Barrett Browning. Dauntless Gladiolus.
    If you visit you can meet her. She would
    like someone else to read her the names.
    I could take you to the drive-in where,
    late September, the corn is still standing,
    and even though you’ve seen it, year after
    year, even though you know what’s
    behind the harvest, what’s really there,
    a wildness waits to reveal itself.

    Corey Van Landingham is the author of three books of poetry: Antidote, Love Letter to Who Owns the Heavens, and Reader, I. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, and she teaches Creative Writing at the University of Illinois.

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