The Jailbird’s First Flight Attempt

By Nick Kolakowski

My sister crushes her fifth cigarette
Into her empty diet-cola can,
Weaves her chewed, oil-spill-black fingernails
Through the toxic forest of her bleached hair,
Flexing to sinewy life the tattoos
That swirl down her forearms smudgy and dark,
Like the memory of some anxious dream,
And lifts her pencil to scratch the first lines
Of a confession years in the thinking.

Watching her, I can’t help but feel jealous.
Isn’t that absurd? Me, the ‘normal one,’
Taxpayer / mortgage holder / careerist,
Nipped by the green-eyed monster over this
Ex-jailbird / ex-tweaker / ex-shoplifter.
And it takes me a minute to realize,
As I sit across from her with my tea,
That I’m jealous of her newborn hope
In the power of black pigment on pulp,
And her trust in the sturdy scaffolding
Of rhyming iambic pentameter
She’s building on that yellow legal pad,
To sculpt herself a fresh reality
On the nothing weight of the written word.

Damn, sis. Didn’t know you had it in you.
I wouldn’t have the courage to do that.

Nick Kolakowski is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. His previous work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Washington Post, LOST magazine, eWeek, Playboy, and Trader Monthly. His upcoming book, “How to Become an Intellectual,” is due from Adams Media in April 2012.