CW: drug use, racial slur
The Last Time
Inside a nightmare of cold sweats and invisible centipedes
just like the first time we kicked together, watched Pat Buchanan on TV, mumbled
about how we were going to change the world as soon as we could
get up.
On another channel, we watched her body bent over, cruciform
I thought I remembered the girl from high school, I think I
sat behind her in some class or another. I think she was the one who first
introduced me to heroin, I say, wanting to impress you
with my elbow-rubbing, my important connections.
She took the cock in her mouth through the fuzzy waves of cable TV interference
and I could swear it was Pat Buchanan on the receiving end of that blowjob.
Heroin me, protection against the onslaught of millipedes, the sound bites
blasting eternal, shopping carts of ant and roach killer
I opened my heart to you. Woke to find this place empty of everything
and nothing, the words “junkie” and “nigger” scrawled across one wall.
Small wounds already closed cruciform on my arm, I thought I told you I didn’t
like to watch the news when I was high but you never
listen to me.
Holly Day has recently appeared in The Cape Rock, New Ohio Review, and Gargoyle. Her newest poetry collections are A Perfect Day for Semaphore (Finishing Line Press), In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), I’m in a Place Where Reason Went Missing (Main Street Rag Publishing Co.), and The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press).