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issue 2: ROAD TRIP

convertible ode-bop to
​the salt river streets

JAMES O'LEARY
​             after The Killers

mother’s money car keeps me from drowning in the desert 
daydreaming i joy ride through miles of grid-grief

hills upon camel mountains motels settled like legion 
don’t i feel pretty behind silver privilege the letters as keys 

for safety & summers sift dust storms for the metal sound of memory 
the gut engine, the nervous brake, the throat drunk dry

drive faster boy, drive faster 

& god it’s fucking miserable hot
i’m vulnerable out here legs miles apart from tame 

stick a salt lick on my tongue the mustang i must want
everywhere once an ocean, everyone once an ocean

the urban opens before a drenched delectable sun windows down
panic token draped over my mirror like heirloom

all heavy spine peppered with saguaro & street signs
thighs roaring lonely & broken quiet with yield 

drive faster boy, drive faster 

so i step on the gas water up to the engine 
so my lover props open my hood under neon 2 am lightning 

so the brakes work well enough to stop my beaten heart 
so my legs rev to the tune of the phoenix refrain & refrain & refrain

so the oiled machine of my bones gets me home safe & unsafe
so roadrunners drown-race me down these gendered streets

drive faster, boy, drive faster, faster

James O’Leary (they/them) is a genderfluid Pisces, poet, & writer from Arizona. A bird lover, caffeine addict, and bisexual disaster, James has work published or forthcoming in Frontier, Kissing Dynamite, The Indianapolis Review, and elsewhere. You can find them online @thesundaypoet.
perhappened mag
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header photo: nicolas cool (unsplash)

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