Note Left on America’s Windshield for A.G. by Michael Dwayne Smith

Weird fucked up America I love you but I don’t. I’m writing you from White Privilege, California, where the sun is sweeping beaches over mountains into deserts, growing crops of cancer on all our fat pale faces.

Weird fucked up America I feel you but I can’t stand it. I’m weeping for you or maybe some dead dumb childhood dream crammed in my head during seventh grade. Is that it? Are you a tumor? That would explain the radiation.

Weird fucked up America I hate you but I don’t. I’m always getting high on cable TV or medical brownies or maybe just walking starry streets without getting shot up by an AR15 or a hypo, or getting tear-gassed even.

Weird fucked up America I ignore you but I can’t forget. I’ve been waving you off like some meth-addled ex I keep running into at parties of mutual friends. Neither of us understands the other. We just need and bleed.

But here’s my new cell number anyway, America, in case you ever want to talk it out, you know, like grown-ups do.

Michael Dwayne Smith lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued animals. His most recent book isRoadside Epiphanies (Cholla Needles Press, 2017). Nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, his work haunts many literary houses--including The Cortland Review, New World Writing, Star 82 Review, Blue Fifth Review, Skidrow Penthouse, Word Riot, Rat's Ass Review, Gravel, San Pedro River Review--and has been widely anthologized. When not writing or teaching, he edits Mojave River Press & Review.