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Nicholas Barnes
If I Had a Milwaukee Vibrator
it’d be like my old crown typer. mocking me the longer i leave it to wilt.
to wither in the garage. i get it. sometimes i don’t love writing. but it feels
damn fine here and there. just like a 6:38 pm ride round this city’s thumb.
some finance therapy with copays, others with $5 gas. haven’t had a sesh
in a bit. won’t until after my birthday. been trying to cartwheel into 26
with grace. don’t think i’ve changed much in 12 months. it’s been the
same: ashamed, nervous, afraid. nothing new. yet, as i hear the faroff
rumbles, enfields and stiletto indians, i brood over a polka dotted pang
of hunger. what good a boxing class, guided meditation, or used moped
could do. those two ochre balloons hanging in the kitchen: they know
bout the changing of the guards. the quarter life crisis. being closer to 30
than 20. they’ll be there for me in 10 days still; i’m deflated, petrified by
fate’s timepiece. i truly hope we all have a five star year. but who knows.
everyone who got hit by a motorcycle hoped to cross the road in peace.
About the writer:
Nicholas Barnes earned a Bachelor of Arts in English at Southern Oregon University. He is currently working as an editor in Portland. His poems have appeared in over fifty publications including trampset, NonBinary Review, and Eclectica Magazine.
Image: Paris Street Scene by Robert Henri (1865-1929). Oil on panel. No size specified. No date specified (Before 1929). Public domain.
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