![]() Michael Battisto has work that can be found or forthcoming in The Normal School, HAD, Poet Lore, The Shore, MoonPark Review, and elsewhere. He has lived in many places, but now he lives in Oakland. You can find him on Twitter @mbattisto3 or @michaelbattisto.com. My Friends
My friends and I exchanged dead fathers until our smiles were the same. We drove through old songs to other states to find what the midnight there meant. Expecting our bodies to be bankrupt by thirty we pawned our arteries and stomachs for chemical epiphanies. We might fast for a week to buy tickets to stripped auditoriums, where the music slowed us into the present tense. We sold seats to canceled concerts and smoked our guilt with the profit. We borrowed each others clothes and partners and beds and confessed our shame through relapses, then slept on the nude floors of stranger’s houses. We listed our dissonances on the walls of our ashtray apartments. We snorted cocaine off stolen exit signs and made sure no one went. Eric and Chris play-fought with knives and threatened to let the other win. We were children humming our innocence and hammering on ourselves with fists. We bought cigarettes instead of food whenever we could and predicted when each other’s bodies would end. In our conversations we declared silence obscene, and left blank pages in our hidden diaries for our friends to write helpless commentaries and promises we almost believed we would keep.
1 Comment
11/26/2022 01:00:44 pm
As someone who's stolen stop signs and bought cigarettes instead of eating I have to say, this piece hits home. Really enjoyed.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Dina L. Relles-
texts i never sent Hannah Larrabee-
The observable universe Caitlyn Alario- Sapphics II
Michael Battisto-
My Friends Ben Togut- Dear H
Saba Keramati-
Self Mythology Shannon Johnson- the wave in my heart is a great green wave
Lauren Saxon- When I tell the flowers hello, she knows
Lisa Summe-
On Polyamory Caroline Stevens-
Field of Vision travis tate- MORE BEAUTY
Alissa M. Barr- Living
Michael Bazzett- from The Book of Unknown Facts
Carrie George- Removing and repositioning
Jess Smith-
Student Evaluations Jenny Irish- Rusalka
Terri Linn David-
For the Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits Darius Simpson- 2 Poems
Kaleigh O'Keefe- Autobiography of Joan of Arc
Timi Sanni- In This World of Mysteries...
Anna Attie- We Lose Her Over Facetime
Ruth Baumann- 2 Poems
Rob Colgate- Remember These Tulips
Tasneem Maher- Pilgrimage
Aerik Francis- Bebop
Emily Blair- The best ham...
Adrienne Novy- 2 Poems
Daniel Garcia- 2 Poems
Brendan Joyce- moving day
Sanna Wani- 2 Poems
Raphael Jenkins- 2 Poems
Daniel Summerhill-
2 Poems Ava Gripp- Your Grandfather Had Secrets
stevie redwood- abolish the dead
Ariel Clark-Semyck-
2 Poems benedict nguyen- 2 Poems
Devin Kelly- 2 Poems
Alan Chazaro- In a Vernacular of Speculation
Deema K. Shehabi-
A Summer's Tale with Fire Birds Kayleb Rae Candrilli-
2 Poems Julianne Neely- 2 Poems
Jake Bailey- 2 Poems
Fargo Tbakhi- 2 Poems
Naomi Shihab Nye-
2 Poems Keith Leonard- Jukebox
CAConrad- 3 Poems
Roya Marsh- for (insert name)
Stephanie Kaylor- LONG DISTANCE
Despy Boutris- BLOODTEETH
JinJin Xu- Days of Hourless Mothers
Ashley M. Jones- Flour, Milk & Salt
Sam Herschel Wein- How To Cook Your Family
Marianne Chan- 2 poems
Jason Crawford- PReP
Geramee Hensley- Redundancy Limit
Dustin Pearson- My Brother Outside the House in Hell
DT McCrea- On occasion of my own death
Noor Hindi- Unkept
Linda Dove- Mid-Life with Teeth
Stephen Furlong- I Don't Know About You, but Mostly I Just Want to be Held
Dorothy Chan- Because You Fall Too Fast Too Hard
Kevin Latimer- MIRAGE
Taylor Byas- Rooftop Monologue
Matt Mitchell- FINE LINE TRIPTYCH
Todd Dillard- Will
Heidi Seaborn- Under The Bed
Heather Myers- A Rainbow, Just For A Minute
Donna Vorreyer- In The Encyclopedia of Human Gestures
Conor Bracken- THE WORST THING YOU CAN DO TO A MAN
Ben Purkert- 2 Poems
Emma Bolden- What Women's Work Is
Chelsea Dingman- Lockdown Drill
Raych Jackson- Pantoum for Derrion Albert from the Plank
Elliot Ping- in the eighth grade
Kwame Opoku-Duku-
ii. dance moves D.A. Powell- Sneak
|