By Ollie Shane
in a year after back to the future three made you scream “give me the future”
Said future gives you more unreal than reality, headlines the type the onion et al could dream of
will we be all right? will we survive the anthropocene/climate chaos
is it any wonder you’ve lost hours falling down rabbit holes?
is it any wonder you come away thinking the end of the world is nigh?
There is a place where the rabbit holes meet, where your pessimism finds a soft spot
it’s called the void, as dark as the darkest night
before or even during the dawn
the void hopes that the more time you spend, the more you find yourself (or the parts you do not want to think of when thinking of Self (and the other))
you’ll learn about yourself
but also the world
you’ll take notes in a nice journal, in pen scrawl
notes from the void coming soon.
About Ollie Shane
Ollie Shane is a poet, undergraduate English major, and the number one tote bag carrier and iced coffee sipper in the Tri-State Area (Delaware and Pennsylvania).He is Autistic and their special interest revolves around literature (currently on 20th century literature (such as W. Somerset Maugham, who they’re doing their thesis on) in conjunction with contemporary poets such as Danez Smith, sam sax, Franny Choi, Terrance Hayes, Mary Alice Daniel and others). Also, he is constantly looking for more poetry and prose recommendations.
On a writerly note, they are the author of the chapbook I Do It So It Feels Like Hell (Bottlecap Press, 2022), and their work has been published in Thirty West’s magazine AfterImages, Poetry As Promised, Palindrome Journal, and elsewhere. They also have a newsletter on Substack called Not Another Newsletter. To see more of their work, check him out on Instagram @aolshane and Chill Subs under olshane17.
Wild Ink Publishing 