Poetry | Journal

This girl is Daytona Beach, 1957.

She’s Audrey Horne with a cigarette

and he’s begging the Marlborough Man for lessons

because by God she is trapped in his head like MKUltra;

they haven’t talked in six or so months, maybe more,

but every photo that pops up of her

is like a Christmas card from a well off grandfather;

she is Marilyn

she is tequila neat three times to many

she is the starlit songstress on a catwalk before him

and he will break and burn down anyone, anything

in-between

if he can’t have her.

He is a plastic handle of muddy rum

spilled over the edge of formican imitation hardwood

seeping into a cherished oriental rug.

He is Revere’s shoreline, 1978.

He’s Sara Goldfarb clinging to the scale;

—the way wind whistles through abandoned storefronts

his slurs stumble between broken teeth.

He hasn’t showered in six days, maybe more,

but every night when he can’t sleep he searches for her online,

he leaves nails behind her tires and waits

for a spin out to make it’s way down the grape vine.

She won’t have him now but one day she will

is what he tells himself while he tells others

she won’t stop talking about him;

she’s just crazy, you know.