On Friday

Friday night, February twenty-third. Myself in orange tights and gold, gold on my body, gold in
my ears. Friday night. Someone lying next to me and myself. Myself in fragments. Myself and
peach whiskey. Myself in gossamer wings.

This has not happened yet. I am planning for Friday. February. Fridaynightfebruarytwentythird.

Love is better than lovers is better than friends. This is why he and I were friends then lovers then not friends then friends. I thought maybe. I should not have thought. What did Camiell say? Oh yes. Happy agony. Happy agony, oh yes. Women as a lesser cut of meat. Oh yes.

A glass piece. This weekend I ordered a glass piece. I ordered it off the web because I am
starved. This weekend I ordered a long thick piece of heavy curved glass off the web.

I probably love him. Infatuation. Myself as a child. There is nothing special about him. There is
nothing special about him at all. I love him because I am a child and when I looked at him he
said your eyes are very blue in the sun. We watched a movie. We drove to Asheville and
watched a movie about ice. Friday. This is why I am driving to Athens. I am driving to Athens
because I probably love him and he is a child and I am a child. Because I am a child and I need
to go away.

​Friday night. Costumes. Costumes and some playlist with songs and orange. Too much orange
and gold. This is why I think I am a phoenix. I think I am a phoenix with someone else.
Gossamer wings. With someone else warm next to me. On Friday night I am a phoenix with
someone else right next to me.

​Author

Madeleine De Pree is a 19-year-old undergraduate student at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. She has published three pieces in her campus literary magazine, and has three other works featured in The Austin Chronicle, The Thing Itself, and Best Emerging Poets of South Carolina: An Anthology. ​