by Allison Renner
the truants
warm chalk
& a blood stain
broken purple fingernails;
road trip polish for an introvert
lips glossed
pomegranate punk
a cardinal moon &
take this kiss
we split, glaring
like tail lights
like a one lane road
hugging,
bracing for the sharp curve
today we’re wild rocks screaming
at the end of a dark dream street
tomorrow is a warning light
draining our battery
goddammit, we’ll spend everything;
give it all to general admission
knowing that we’re too short
to see the stars
the cold ground & carnivores,
all of it simpler than the loneliness
of coming home
we’re muffled by book covers
true black eyelashes
smolder & rip;
5AM sputter
receivers ring
in a lost silver hoop
& ring an empty gas tank
& ring
an unattended sunrise
if we’re cheap sheets
dressed up like silk for the finale;
if we’re nothing more
than a deal that we made
then tomorrow
is the same distance
dividing
& every exit
is today
& in another field
we rehearse
for an audience that’s dead,
asleep, or dying
we’re driven by mysteries
that work in god-like ways
and so we run
before all the clocks ring
E. Samples’ favorite breakfast is dark chocolate oreos and black coffee. Her favorite mood was a Counting Crows t-shirt and pack of Parliament Lights, both of which she lost at a Morehead, Kentucky laundromat in 2002. Her writing has been published in Plainsongs, Abridged, Still: The Journal, Lucent Dreaming, Soliloquies, and elsewhere. She is co-founder and poetry editor of Dead Skunk: A Lit Mag That Doesn’t Stink.
Allison Renner is an editor for Flash Fiction Magazine and the Publicity & Reviews Manager for Split/Lip Press. Her fiction and photography has appeared in or is forthcoming from The Daily Drunk, Six Sentences, Rejection Letters, Versification, Thimble Literary Magazine, and vulnerary magazine. She can be found online at allisonrennerwrites.com and on Twitter @AllisonRWrites.