The first high school reunion is a funeral.
Afterwards, we chainsmoke in the back
yard because language isn’t always enough
to get us through. There are people still

alive in this world who need me (you) &
feeling fluctuates though freeways refuse.
I know the route & want it over with
since no one teaches in a ghost-cluttered

classroom, except for believers in forgetting
as blessing, when it’s only a form of story
telling: proxy for patterns of pruning &
harvest. Here, in whatever the opposite

of pastoral is, we slam our heads against
the horn & hedge fates on fake IDs.
Tear-spangled gratitude for the ones who
leave. Nine years from now, we’ll decline

invitations, too yellowed to love
anyone but each other & that sweet dog
sniffing at the ashtray lord let him out
live every thing: botched narratives of

grief, traffic unrelenting— machinery
mess on its way through losing. Break
soft, you swear, is all I’m asking. No
more dying. Not until we’re ready.

Matthew Toth (he/they) is a writer and editor from Pasadena, CA. A sophomore English major at Kenyon College, Matthew is currently an associate at the Kenyon Review. His work handles themes of queerness—shame, joy, and where they overlap. He has been published previously in HIKA Magazine.