The wrinkles on her elbow are like the circles in a tree stump, telling her age to anyone who knows the formula. I watched her from two seats behind on the bus.

Her nostrils were big. I wanted to climb into one of them and get sucked up into her brain with a hard tugging snort. I wanted to be an ant and weigh less than a gram. I could imagine walking around in there and sliding down the swervy brain like a water slide.

Her hair was around her face in a blonde halo, like a 70’s model. And her make-up was also reminiscent of that era, applied in wide sloppy strokes. I would have been ashamed to take her home to my father.

She stumbled as she got off of the bus and I felt very big, almost to the point of not being there at all.
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Kevin Sampsell lives in Portland, Oregon. He is a book store events coordinator, small press publisher (Future Tense Books), part-time critic, father, and author of The Patricia Letters and the collection How to Lose Your Mind with the Lights On. His newest collection is a batch of haiku titled, Haiku You. He is 31.