LEFT OUT LEAVES / *image by Amalie Flynn*

The Things You Leave Out
after Yamamoto Jōchō, Jim Morrison, and Robert Frost

You quote

One cannot perform feats of greatness
in a normal frame of mind.

You leave out

One must turn fanatic and
develop a mania for dying.

You quote

I drink
so I can talk to assholes.

You leave out

This includes me.

You quote

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

You leave out

Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.

You leave those things out
so we won’t know you’re

morbid
livid
timid

Eric Chandler

Eric Chandler is the author of Kekekabic (Finishing Line Press, 2022) and Hugging This Rock (Middle West Press, 2017). His writing has appeared in Northern Wilds, Grey Sparrow Journal, The Talking Stick, Sleet Magazine, O-Dark-Thirty, Line of Advance, Collateral, The Deadly Writers Patrol, PANK, The Wrath-Bearing Tree, Consequence Magazine, and Columbia Journal. Chandler was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2014 for creative nonfiction. He’s a three-time winner of the Col. Darron L. Wright Award for poetry. Chandler is also a US Air Force veteran of both the active duty and the Minnesota Air National Guard. He flew 145 combat missions and over 3000 hours in the F-16. He’s happiest when he’s on a trail in Duluth with his wife, two children, and faithful dog, Leo.