published in Roi Faineant in Winter 2022.
I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me
every night too much birthday in the big city
the craziest year of my life & Kendall Roy
that deeply broken soul, has been with me
every step of the way, like a guardian angel
with more money than I’ll ever need
but with the same taste in music, all bangers
all the time, here it comes the white lines
here it comes the radios replacing our mouths
so every word coming out is disingenuous rhythm
something thought up by someone else
yet we still shake our hips through boardrooms or treehouses
always acting like young dinosaurs having their first roars
pathetic little fucking narcissists who started this big war
against the world, but more so against ourselves
now watch us fall apart, here it comes
the hangings of Babylon, here it comes
the family rubble in our eyes
so every time we try to form a memory of tenderness
the flowers don’t feel quite right
but wouldn’t it be nice?
building a treehouse above your grave
where I scribble swallowed blood, all of the
depraved mistreatments I will always crave
because you needed something small to be
a sacrifice to seem a deity
I need to be the last of us alive
undulating in a dying tree
inside your architecture, I survive
I blossom here if indecently
the walls are papered velvet cashmere sheets
I wrap around the men who climb to me
up rungs I hung the afternoon I grieve
an idea of you I refuse to save
no room inside a treehouse above a grave
here it comes the white lines
here it comes the family rubble in our eyes
Justin Karcher (Twitter: @justin_karcher, Instagram: the.man.about.town) is a Best of the Net- and Pushcart-nominated poet and playwright from Buffalo, NY. He is the author of several books, including Tailgating at the Gates of Hell (Ghost City Press, 2015). He is also the editor of Ghost City Review.
Kristin Garth is a Pushcart, Rhysling nominated sonneteer and a Best of the Net 2020 finalist. Her sonnets have stalked journals like Glass, Yes, Five:2:One, Luna Luna and more. She is the author of many books of poetry including Crow Carriage (Sweet Tooth Story Books) and The Stakes (Really Serious Literature) and the editor of seven anthologies. She is the Dollhouse Architect of the Pink Plastic House.