The Effects of Isopropyl Alcohol

The smell of isopropyl alcohol in here 
must say something 
somewhere 
about something 
in our future. 

(medically.) 

I’ve never seen a bathroom this small. 
spoiled brat,
and I know it. 
Sit on a toilet, with my knees tucked into the husk holding 
it, us, we up. 

Beautiful, long black skirt. 
The shirt I gave you that I was gifted 
in an early stage of friendship 
that only rotted like an apple. 
It’s on your body 
rolled up to your elbows 
, but it slips past them. 

The smell burns the hairs in my nose. 
I study your wet skin in the sink water, 
as you hold something clear and admire it. 
Pangea’s shit-box is in the corner of our bathroom. 
Wow. 
Right now, with exactly four squares of tan tile going horizontally beneath my crossed conversed feet, 
I count it out, 
extended out to six tiles ahead of me. 
The perfectly white, untouched cabinet that holds the 
porcelain 
tub 
of a sink– 
matched with white(?) walls 
that look like somebody experimented 
avec papier mâché 
de our bathroom. 

An air vent to my left, 
Autumn says, 
a tan 
washing board 
from the pioneer times with a knob on the right of it. 
A sticker, eaten away on the top lip. 

“Tracking Number 
Keep for your records” 
The brown door, that’s slender 
, oddly slender, 
were people thinner in the early 1900s? 
… and the 
Light Switch 
that is about five and a half inches 
from the side of the golden door knob. 
Easily an inch between that switch and the brown-stained door frame. 

Across from me, 
the ground 
a bottle of rolled over something. 

All I can tell is that its a baby proofed, 
over-the-counter something. 
Probably aspirin, ibuprofen… 

It smells like a doctor’s office. 

Who the hell puts a sink below an outlet? 

Mirror above that… 
The furthest cabinet that’s iced with kitty food and 

The same exact soap I’ve had in my house for years, 
that light blue 
boring 
comfortable 
hand soap 
like a token from home– 
I’m so far south 

A red thumbtack beside it 
with it’s spear turned away from me 
like the bow of a head 
the knight before god 
and the enemy making friends. 

Did you know we pray like a knight bows, 
as if to be slain? 

Life, our cherished blessing, is something I’ve grown to complain about.
I’m too afraid of myself to go outside. 
What if I have something new to be afraid of when I come back home? 

adeline Cronin is a writer from O’Fallon, Missouri. Recently having finished a degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, she is now looking at the big wide world, blankly staring as to what she will do next… without school filling up her time. She wouldn’t be here without the wonderful people in her life that she loves so dearly, and her dog, Nola. You can find more of her work in Currents Magazine, as well as Gabby & Min Publications.