‘For Aubrey 4’ & ‘Onder Het Leven’
Jake Schneider (b.1999) is an American photographer from the Dayton, Ohio area. His work ranges from street photography to photojournalism. He is inspired by photographers such as Jim Marshall, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, and Larry Burrows. His current project is "Doors at 8, Music at 9" a longform documentation of Dayton vast music scene. Showcasing Dayton's supportive community.
For Aubrey 4
after rest it was calm and bright
but i could see from the eyeball
of the streetlamp outside your
window how different our skin
looked in that light mine
coffee yours something
between sand and moon
and for a second it felt like ice
cream in a heatwave melting
into the sidewalk like the
end of fall when the leaves
stuck to our shoes and i couldn’t
tell if that was dew or love
and i knew i wasn’t hurting exactly
but i liked how i loved like
dissolving in warm water and the
shape of you was still on my
chest after you moved the
way sunburns leave outlines
of what mattered and you
said something about jazz or
afternoon or maybe the blinds but i
wasn’t listening i was trying to
remember if love always came after
agony or if this was the first time i
wanted to be
completely consumed and didn’t
care what was left of me
and you were still talking but i kept
thinking how the streetlamp made it
all look like an accident scene and if
this were winter we’d freeze where
we lay stuck like that together but
separate, beautiful in a way we’d
both pretend
not to notice until the thaw
Onder Het Leven
it wasn’t raining hard just enough to
smear the roadlines into
something like handwriting or
memory and I kept watching the
water so it might spell something
out or at least blur everything
enough to feel okay again
saturday night kind of light
where the fog looks holy
but not in a church way
headlights on accident glass
and all of it just felt weirdly
honest like when someone
says I love you but you’re
listening for the part they
didn’t say or when someone
lies so well it sounds
like breakfast, routine,
brushing teeth and bleeding
she wore pearls with a cherry dress
that looked like it belonged to
someone braver, skin bruised in
constellations, the kind corsets
leave. tight enough to press
memory out of a person like pulp
from fruit and I don’t know why
but it felt beautiful or bold or
something you do when
words won’t land
and under all that filigree like
tiny nerves sketching out a
secret map and everyone
has one even the loud people
especially the loud people and they
all try so hard to scrub them clean
with safety, with distance with just
enough pride, with mierenneuken
Paul Potts is an 18 year old Oklahoman poet. He began writing poetry in late 2024 after a recommendation from his teachers and peers. You can find his works in the JUST POETRY! 2024-2025 anthologies and the OKCTE YWC 2025 Anthology.
