Contributor: Cynthia Pitman

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The lights dim.
The film strip starts to flutter.
The images flash.
Memories, forged from frozen fire,
burn frostbite into my fists
as I grip them,
grapple with them,
struggle to strangle them.
One by one, they retell
the same old story.
They burn it again and again
into my ice-cold soul.

I’m tired of this show.
I've seen it so many times,
watched it over and over,
this perpetual rerun,
this skip on the vinyl record,
this Candyland ice cream bar
that sends me down the slide
to start my Sisyphean task all over again.


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I'm a retired English teacher from Orlando. I have had or will have poetry and fiction published in Right Hand Pointing, Literary Yard, Amethyst Review, Saw Palm, and others.