Donald Trump Riding a Dead Seahorse By Justin Karcher

It’s a little past midnight on November 9

the best gay bar in Buffalo feels like a funeral

drag queens weeping & holding bouquets of wilted iPhones

language is burning holes in our hands

the bartender tries juggling liquor bottles

but they all come crashing to the floor

some people just don’t give a fuck

the young kids who snuck into the bar are ignoring the world around them

getting drunk & sloppily singing Beyoncé

who thought karaoke on election night was a good idea

but here we all are

my shirt’s off

some guy who looks like Roy Orbison is giving me a tattoo

the electoral college map carved into my chest

it’s turning me on

my body a canvas of American mistakes

most of me hemorrhaging in anger

whatever’s left tangled up in blue

it all seems like a dream

the way everyone is moving through the bar

like psycho strung out fish floating in the ocean

a couple of my friends look like male seahorses & they won’t stop crying

now Roy is pouring whiskey down my back & over my chest

I feel like I’m on fire

my friends ask if I’m alright 

now I’m babbling about how there’s not much difference 

between the human eye & the male seahorse

like sometimes a male seahorse will give birth to thousands of babies at once

I’ve seen it on YouTube

it looks like a sudden snow flurry

a goddamn revelation

because sadness works the same way

like sometimes your eyes give birth to thousands of teardrops at once

now I’m freaking out

scared that it really is the end of the world

because only about five out of every thousand baby seahorses 

survive to adulthood

so that means most of the sadness 

we’re experiencing right now

will drift along in the plankton layer of America’s apathetic ocean 

die alone in the darkness

now I’m telling everyone at the bar 

we gotta collect the dread all around us

we gotta scoop up all those baby seahorses lost in the wilderness 

bring ‘em home

because what kind of person would just sit around & do nothing

while the American heart becomes a desert full of seahorse bones

by night’s end Roy is cradling me in his arms & singing “Crying”

I drift off to half-sleep as the whole wide world burns to the ground 

Justin Karcher (Twitter: @justin_karcher) is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright born and raised in Buffalo, NY. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). Recent playwriting credits include The Birth of Santa (American Repertory Theater of WNY) and “The Trick Is to Spill Your Guts Faster Than the Snow Falls” (Alleyway Theatre).