PASSIO

(or) I Worry for My Friends; May They Worry for Me Also

Thad DeVassie

My beloved extroverts are in state of decline, metaphorically dying on the vine in this long bleak spell of isolation and extraction from what makes them – them.

What might it mean to comfort and claim – we’ll get through this. Together.

They won’t hear of it, not from one whom they envision thriving in solitude, excelling in a self-contained hell of silence and empty. If only they could see how much we are akin, how I too am dying, deeper within this choked vine of life, quietly contemplating if it will ever be possible to push through a new green shoot, a desire I never once wished for until a time such as this.

Thad DeVassie is a multi-genre writer and painter who creates from the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio. He was awarded the 2020 James Tate International Poetry Prize for his manuscript, SPLENDID IRRATIONALITIES. His chapbooks, THIS SIDE OF UTOPIA (Cervena Barva) and YEAR OF STATIC (Ghost City Press) are forthcoming in 2021. You can find him online @thaddevassie.