Pride+Poetry Featured Reader Series: Tyler Chick

This week, we'll be posting poems from each of our featured readers headlining the New Cumberland Pride Pride+Poetry event. Join us Friday 7/22 at 6:30 outside the New Cumberland Library for an open mic followed by our main event. Check out the New Cumberland Pride Guide to find out all the awesome stuff going on Saturday at the first annual Pride Picnic!

Tyler Chick is a generalist performer and writer based in Pennsylvania. They teach and perform at the Harrisburg Improv Theatre and are a member of the core writing team on the podcast Sketchy Sketch Sketch Show. She also creates music under the name Same Each.

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Time is a Love Circle

When the universe exploded

inevitable as too many angels

on the head of a pin

they grew like gangbusters

insatiable

a child running headlong

a column of fire

All expansion and what's that what's this?

and instant message after dark

and learner's permits

And too young

to be parents

workaholics

a latch-key universe

But the gravity

smelling of honeysuckle

and a grown-up force

the time for stars waking demanding

and they were full of worlds

chock-full like how

a flock breathes one thing and

a world is every bird

But grew apart in flight

be quiet

walk out into

a city of breakups

alarmed under the skin

On the corner

it was distance

it was

bridge and tunnel crosswalk distance

So thin

alone

asleep

Until such time

in old age

a ragged rubber band

could snap a moment

like a birth

And rushing, rushing rushing

from the peak of Everest

came a clawfoot tub

careening 'cross the ice

exhilaration

the universe in freefall

And calling to its members

a bellow of love

because we had become cold shoulders

Too quickly

like a family

Smaller and smaller

Fewer and fewer

An empty womb for all our siblings

to return to

born alive

inevitable

And what's that?

what's this?

The loudest life we've ever seen