By Shyla Ann Shehan

       ~ 25 years after “Leaving Las Vegas” ^[1]

Such is life, she said, with such

a look like a shrug while she mused about a

muddy river of sediment and rocks and how that muddy

line drawn through the heartland of the matter becomes a fault line

between perception and reality – the difference between

the curated images of the social story arc and the

things that appear in the mirror each day, things

you hold tight, close to your chest. Deep down you

want what she wants, what they want, and also what I want

and it’s a precious gem, this wanting – for more – to be seen and

the gleam is like light that hits a surface and refracts all the

things you dared to dream at 19 compared to now. So many things

you never tried to achieve because nobody told you that You

have had what’s possible inside all along. Now you have

to move, to leave, for good – to be the light, and to

do. You know you have to, and so you do.

~~~~~

Shyla Ann Shehan is an analytical Virgo from the Midwest. She holds an MFA from the University of Nebraska, where she received an Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work has been featured in The Pinch, Moon City Review, Midwest Quarterly, Sunlight Press, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere and her debut poetry collection, Mining the Gap, is forthcoming from WSC Press. Shyla is co-founder and curator of The Good Life Review and lives in Omaha with her husband, children, and three cats. For more, please visit shylashehan.com.

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^[1]  “Such a muddy line between the things you want and the things you have to do” is a lyric from the song “Leaving Las Vegas” by Sheryl Crow. The first and last word of each line of the poem is derived from this. I’m calling it a double golden shovel, in honor of Terrance Hayes.