u/GuideBoth7501

Hello,

As the title suggests, I’m (22f) starting a new job in August about 8 1/2 hours away from my boyfriend (20m), and because I’m early in my career I have no PTO until 6 months into the job, then I get 5 days, then 10 after a year. I just graduated university but my boyfriend has one more year to go, and we originally planned to see eachother once a month but I don’t know how possible that is going to be, especially since I’m moving somewhere that’s not easy to reach by bus train or plane from him. We both have cars but I’ve never driven for longer than two hours at a time, 4 in a day. I’m not making a lot of money and neither is he.

Any advice?

Thank you.

the hurricane on the sleep side barks, old dog
weeps raindrops to the plexiglass about
the everglades fires
the man who killed my cousin with
tommy gun and plywood through
her rear view mirror
framed her head as consolation prize
with all the other teenage girls
wrapped in jet ski tethers
and barometric pressure hieroglyphics

it’s all saltwater,
but you knew that already.

beyond ectoplasm, I’m deer-in-headlights
the sweat of the beast falls on me, i erase myself
where i have been and where i am now dreaming
from the ground floor with my one good eye
i read lorca and sleep through all my
alchemical dream alarms synapses
soured in the back of my mouth
overboiled water like buckets with all my detritus
annotate pulitzer winners on a
mildewed dvd plugged to a projector plugged
to a generator at the gas station
but that's not publishable

all the destruction here is routine,
but you knew that already.

droplets hit my back like bullets
i drag a bag of mangos through an empty street
in half submerged flipflops
slice my soles with the slick of the mud
watch my mother weep about a sunburn i got
without the sun and tie the dog back down
to her post like some inpatient who keeps
trying to float

i’m meant to say something,
but all i do is bark

sleeping on tile floor, i read marti’s young works to feel better about myself
gamble on lotto numbers from guardian angels
and bark like a rabid dog for hours i spent on
elevator music phone trying to get my money back
get a tattoo of dogfish to commemorate another
dead lesbian who will never know me
and never stop crying

the dog is blind,
but you knew that already.

rivers through the grout lines of
my childhood enter left stage green with
moss bacteria from poolside locker rooms
typhoon pushing the party-yacht
every masthead’s got rot
or veneers i read churata
and never understand in any language
translate into kalinago but its all plexiglass

i am only the dead family dog,
barking at the wind and the doorbell again.

from the sleep side the storm’s all corpse
mouth open fly-meal mid bark
my cousin’s dashcam flashes to the autopsy
before the bang in the everglades
the sky burns the afterimage in with smoke
and peat moss

but you knew that already.

comment 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/1ucvzbh/chroma_shift/

comment 2:
https://www.reddit.com/r/poetry_critics/comments/1udl4u5/clothes/

Hi,

I'm a reporter moving from upstate NY who just got a job with the Charleston Gazette-Mail, and am looking for some issues to tackle in an investigative, enterprise journalism way. Since I'm not in the area yet, I cant use my normal ways of finding stories and don't want to rely on articles already written about these issues. I want to focus on what people think needs to be talked about, and what people want to read.

So, citizens of Charleston, I ask you: What is an issue everyone is ignoring/barely talking about, that you want some light shed on?

Edit: My DMs are open, if you feel safer there. I promise any conversation we have will be confidential, off the record, and background until you say you want to go on the record. I cant guarantee anything you say will be published, but i can guarantee I will heavily research anything you send me, and if I pick up the pitch, you'll be someone I come to to discuss it.

Edit: Thank you all so much for all of the suggestions! Due to the volume of comments and DMs and the extent of research id like to give each tip, I may be delayed in answering you, but please keep sending your suggestions. I'm reading each one and each one is incredibly important.