Kallie Blakelock
Winter 2026 | Poetry
There’s a Problem
With the Button
There’s a problem with the button.
Your two good-for-nothing cats can’t press it.
You’ve gotta find someone who will do it for you, someone who isn’t boiling water for green beans, or chasing a lizard on the carpet or driving a bus or fighting with her girlfriend or filling his bones full of Ozempic or lying or living in Lewiston, Maine– and who does that leave?
There’s a problem with the button.
You know. The one you tell Colleen Therapist about. The button you wish was in arm’s reach so that you could offhandedly press that red disc any time you please. Any time. Please. You can’t
& that’s the problem with the button.
It could be great– indefinite sleep, no breathing even.
No breathing,
even.
No repeating thoughts manifesting
on your skin.
No repeating thoughts manifesting
you as thin.
No repeating
no repeating
manifesting
when you’re thinking, yes, thinking
on your skin. Please, even.
The problem with the button is you must rely upon someone else to successfully succumb, to succumb succumb successfully:
slip slidin’ away in to peace, in to nothing, just for a little while.
Just for a little while.
Kallie Blakelock is a former high school teacher who recently relocated from Baltimore to Tampa. She is a poet who likes to explore things like sorrow, bodies of water, and her own mind. Though she’s far from the salty Eastern Shore of Maryland where she was raised, Kallie loves the sunshine and community she has encountered during her time as an MFA student at the University of South Florida. She lives with her obese cats, Mowgli and Mona.