Let’s Get Back to the Party

by Elina Katrin

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to love the taped gas station beer packs. to love unbuttoned 
shirts & smudged mascara, its semi-circles transferred 
onto midnight. on the street, you exhale. this open-endness 
makes you swoop your friends. give them a sloppy kiss 
on the forehead, the kind that mumbles everything your knotted 
tongue cannot. you hazy-eyed imagine the halos of streetlights 
lifting you all into serenity of delicate words, encase
this moment in an hourglass of timeless particles. of course,
it’s important to go to parties. to feel this—all 
of this, the momentum of your friends’ step, the shape 
of their laughter piercing the cold night’s air, reverberating 
in goosebumps on the back of your neck. to say i love you 
without thinking, like it was always intended to be said, 
when you catch someone else’s glance on the other side 
of the street, exchange a smile across the crosswalk, 
and an i love you escapes your lips before you can catch it,
before you realize you’ve said it, i love you, i’ll be there soon, 
just wait

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Born to a Syrian father and a Russian mother, Elina Katrin is now bicoastal, residing in-between Southern California and Northern Virginia. A baking enthusiast, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Fourth River, BreakBread Magazine, New World Writing Quarterly, and elsewhere. Elina's debut chapbook of poetry is forthcoming from Newfound in 2023.