by Justin Karcher

Let’s dye our hair

submarine blue

let’s listen

to the 2005 Warped Tour

Compilation

let’s break

into crumbling

Rust Belt mansions

before Florida

slumbirds

sell the land

because the brokenness

is all we have

half-burned chunks of wax

with no 401(k) plans

running scared through a napless land

afraid to close our eyes & dream

afraid of what we’ll see

smartphone cockroaches

digging through our old texts

our old tweets

desperation

is the only thing we’ll leave behind

these days

we always smell

a little like

suicide

roadkill

dangling

in the backs of our throats

where our tonsils

should

or shouldn’t be

[Justin Karcher (Twitter: @Justin_Karcher. Instagram: the.man.about.town) is a Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, New York. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). He is also the editor of Ghost City Review and co-editor of the anthologies My Next Heart: New Buffalo Poetry (BlazeVOX [books], 2017) and MANSION (dancing girl press, 2019).]