(Note to self don’t die, Ryan Adams)
I had a Zippo, your initials carved on the lid; smokes cost less than a buck a pack. We were two wannabe outlaws lambing our way to oblivion. Where do you keep your hope nowadays? Tethered to a bad joke? Do you bear the weight of belief in the faded tattoo ink over your heart? I could verb with the best of them but can’t adjective worth a good goddamn anymore. Can’t hold my liquor these days & cigarettes make me lonely for the happily-ever-afters we dreamt about that night at Aqua City Motel. Neighbors pounding on the wall for us to turn down the tinny radio blasting The Clash. You never know when your luck will run out. Can never tell when the sky will decide to fall. Keep your trigger finger warm baby; there’s a cold front moving in.
Alex Stolis has had poems published in numerous journals. Two full length collections Pop. 1280, and John Berryman Died Here were released by Cyberwit and available on Amazon. His work has previously appeared or is forthcoming in Piker’s Press, Ekphrastic Review, Louisiana Literature Review, Burningwood Literary Journal, and Star 82 Review. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He lives in upstate New York with his partner, poet Catherine Arra.
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