Tuning Tones by Hoya Dolling

I was never a good painter. 

My high school art teacher used to tell me 

my colors were so faint— 

delicate to passion. 

Too much 

pigment would rot my eyes like 

unbrushed candy. I 

still miss those little strawberry 

wrapped bonbons, though 

they are still being manufactured. 

The packaging and flavor is the same, 

but not the experience. Never 

again will they taste old, 

with soft craters, while 

I am young. I 

miss the unbranded flat lollipops 

from the banks that caught me guilty 

when I heard them crackle against my teeth. 

When lightning strikes, and 

the power goes to rest, I 

think of the board games whose 

dice never fell in my favor, 

lit by candlelight. 

Near my fingertips, the 

flame competes against my body heat— 

warm, though my heart is stuck in the freezer, 

forgotten in time for Friday dinner, 

still sitting among tomorrow’s leftovers when 

freezer blocks seeped into my pores. I 

wondered if pouring orange juice 

from continental breakfast’s bag-in-the-box 

would shift the hue, like my 

mother’s hair that shone cerise 

when she needed pictures to share— 

like purple shampoo foaming 

yellow to silver glares, 

devaluing the foil coins 

I only ever knew to 

leave behind as childish currency.

A Tuning Fork

Hoya Dolling

is an emerging indie-writer based in the

Pacific Northwest, forging poetry and fiction with the weight of

always choosing rock in a world of paper and scissors. Stiff, but not

unchanging, the stone is weak to erosion with time as the artist,

painting blisters and smoothing personal edges.