by Jacque Davis
the roadtrip where you become glass
so i’m eating a breakfast of black beans and tortillas
when the world stops turning
when the street cracks open
when the wind stills and blackberries burst
the sun is sheer like xacto and work
starts in thirty minutes, i remind Pops
“why does my family hate me?” he asks any ways
i drink the Twin Peaks black coffee
and the postcards sit unsent south in Big Sur when shits gets real
when the punctured armor loosens the heart’s cauldroned tar when the
island rots and the moon eats the garden in the front yard
the city doesn’t mind that you assaulted that man, i tell Pedro, the bones are
done aching in fact they’re underground now deeper than a whale resting on
a loamy bed of salty earth, i tell Peter
“you’ve always judged me.
so does your brother.
the only person who ever loved me was Karen,”
he spits.
it’s three in the morning and he’s been on a bender, shaming me for not doing
as much MDMA as him at the Oasis,
the go-to club South of Market. shaming me for not being a more accepting son.
I really wish his second wife’s name wasn’t Karen,
that shit hits like Denise or Cindy, but i don’t have the breath to laugh.
i’m crying with the remaining shaky breath in my sandpaper lungs.
so there i am slapping the plate with the last shred of the last tortilla
when the white knuckles go brown again
when even the brown can’t keep stable and shimmies into bourbon
we both get in that zombie van and the road hits me like a stack of maple-syrup-
wet pancakes and I fall back into the dream of breakfast, of the day i might have
if things veer different this time as I caress through the 101.
Paolo Bicchieri is a novelist, journalist, poet, and student living in San Francisco. He writes often about the convergence of identity, family, and optimism. His work has appeared in Eater SF, Standart Magazine, Nomadic Press, and Flash Fiction Magazine. He’s a big proponent of phone calls.
Jacque Davis creates art from her home studio in Southern Illinois. Her longtime love of color, texture and stitch is evident in her richly colored and densely stitched art. She is inspired by nature and the evocative language of dreams. Her work can be seen at jacquedavis.com