perhappened mag
issue 1: CARNIVAL
the exploding ghost at
the autumn fair
CHRIS PREWITT
Please remember, my love, we are locked in here together because I love you.
I could barely stand the pendulum swing of the pirate ship at the Fourth of July fair. My tepid face being pressed back in, in my hands, and you laughed, but you did not believe me, even when I took no more than three steps forward from the ride and spit out my blood and tears.
You never want to hold my hand, and you think because I can speak in public I can’t really be so anxious that it hurts to breathe when people and their animals come up to us in the park.
I can handle the dart and the pink balloons and the stuffed animals. Everywhere a child is crying in the periphery. We are together through dusk and then the moon is overhead and I love you.
A man in a leather jacket flatfoots alone in front of a local cover band on the stage. The air is stale with sorrow.
We come upon The Exploding Ghost. Now you take my hand. Now you want me to go inside. I can barely stand being inside myself. Please, it is so hard inside any machine.
Please remember when we are inside together and the door locks, it is so because I love you.
I could barely stand the pendulum swing of the pirate ship at the Fourth of July fair. My tepid face being pressed back in, in my hands, and you laughed, but you did not believe me, even when I took no more than three steps forward from the ride and spit out my blood and tears.
You never want to hold my hand, and you think because I can speak in public I can’t really be so anxious that it hurts to breathe when people and their animals come up to us in the park.
I can handle the dart and the pink balloons and the stuffed animals. Everywhere a child is crying in the periphery. We are together through dusk and then the moon is overhead and I love you.
A man in a leather jacket flatfoots alone in front of a local cover band on the stage. The air is stale with sorrow.
We come upon The Exploding Ghost. Now you take my hand. Now you want me to go inside. I can barely stand being inside myself. Please, it is so hard inside any machine.
Please remember when we are inside together and the door locks, it is so because I love you.
Chris Prewitt is the author of Paradise Hammer (SurVision Books), winner of the 2018 James Tate Poetry Prize. Prewitt's writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.