Poetry: Selections from Braeden Sagehorn

A touch of you

 

i broke away from the wind

yesterday, it was freeing;

for the first time in my life 

there was no motion against

my body. and i walked about the yard

feet pressed against the grass

hugging its sides

gliding from place

to place in search 

of what? i’m not sure, 

myself, but the warmth 

of the sun against the tops

of my toes feels so relaxing.

i could just stand here

and take it all in, 

all day. is this what spring is like?

i’m thinking of ending things

 

the last time we fucked 

i didn’t feel like myself—

well i never do, but this time

was different.

 

i’m not sure if it's me, or if

its something else, no wait,

it's definitely me.

it has to be me!

 

and i would say i’m sorry because

i know you’ll think i owe you the 

spiel that its me, but now as i think 

about it, it might be you. in fact, 

it is all you

but i won’t crush your heart

 

between my fingers. i’ll play my

part, i’ll say the lines:

“it’s not you, it’s me”. that’s right,

for my last words to you will be 

a lie.

watching movies by a pool of mercury

 

towards the window i see a film of a 

ballet unknown to me.

unknown to the neighbors too, it must be a

new screening; cars scattered across

the lot. 

 

a man reaches to hug his girlfriend but is

rejected—pushed away—an emotional state

assumed to be capsized by the sadness in

her eyes.

 

thoughts unknown, but actions ever present,

effervescent is her face, under pressure to 

reassure him that the horrors

of separation is movement forward

not backwards.

 

in this horror screening i see from my

window that which takes me back 

over my bed unto the 

floor; dragged to the lake now beneath

the surface she ceases to move.

 

a life similar, no life the same; bashed against

the glass of the bedroom mirror, cheek married

to its pain. her mouth forced to

breath a reflective heat; still

plastered to the glass is the boy  

 

on the screen, torn apart,

and the boy in his room spins— 

twirls—a ballerina trapped in front

of the crowd. inside the silver

screen, outside,

no choice but to perform, 

but the man on the film

isn’t real. 

you are. 

A father begets mischief

 

White buffers blonde inspiration down

to a bruised, mangled man

who stands in the door frame with

legs weak, and heavy.

 

He collapses, reaching still to grab the 

frame for an edge to lift up from, 

but he can’t 

 

so, he crawls to the nearest table and

hoists his legs, then hips, higher and higher

until his torso breaches the heavens. 

 

He stands now, and attempts to meander

to the living room 

to rest on his couch, but his legs

give out mid walk—chin crashes to the floor 

a shockwave ripples through his jaw, critical

 

hours await him, but he proceeds onwards 

to the couch

dragging 

dragging 

 

dragging his legs with him until the base

of the cushion meets his eye 

here he hoists again his weight up and

 

over unto the bed where he lays lavishly

lapping up the heat from the ray projecting

from the window to his head’s

north.

 

Finally, after hours his wife arrives 

bursting through the door and into

the living room to find her husband 

at peace on the couch 

 

eyes widening a width greater than 

Tartarus, he speaks

“Honey--

the kids hid my wheelchair again”

Braeden Sagehorn was born and raised in Shelton, CT, but currently resides in West Haven, CT. He is attending the University of Connecticut School of Medicine as a first year medical student.