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’s poetry has recently appeared in Plainsongs, The Long Islander, and The Nashwaak Review. 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.), The Yellow Dot of a Daisy (Alien Buddha Press), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), and Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing).