Main Character Syndrome Such an ominous gathering, a midnight choir dauntingly harmonizing with conversation tense as tendons holding muscle to bone, our protagonist looms in the corner with a smile of varying sincerity, sliding back and forth like beads on an abacus. Crunching an empty beer can, he wonders if he is interesting enough to leave vices behind, lay them out on the lawn like autumns’s leaves - he is not. Foliage keeps him from confidently stating the color of grass, frigid rain begins to fall and wash away stale dew and his imagination is a pile of broken umbrellas as he closes the door on a piercing soprano nobody can hear. Desperately at odds with empty rooms except for dusty surfaces and clothes twice worn - there is no protagonist because there is no antagonist. He is the half moon of his own clear midnight sky. While the rest of us are bumping happy shoulders like drunken mice, he is the unhappy goat chomping on our refuse, thinking of tomorrow morning’s eggs and bacon - of a way to immortalize himself and us around him, so we stay close with our cameras around our necks and fight irritation when he rolls his third joint of the day without having made a joke or writing a song, or shedding real tears from chances taken and lost. We sing praises of the air outside and music of clanking sewer grates and creaky swing sets as we hand him those dice. He rolls snake eyes and takes a long drag. We watch him drink in the morning.
I Love You, Rosemary Thinking of the Kennedy’s often since coming to New England - particularly Rosemary and her lobotomy. Imagining her antics as fun, the spirit of celebrity in the new millennium before the sick bastard Joe had her brain scooped out like ice cream from a tub the way sick bastards do, shouting at poor Rosemary, “Lie still, you cunt!” waving an ice pick above his head. But I love you, Rosie. Tell me what you saw. You just needed somebody to listen, didn’t you? So what if you got drunk and railed endless lines of cocaine, sucked every cock and licked every clit from Hyannis to Hollywood? It’s what daughters of dynasties do - it’s behavior most presidential, your brothers feign in comparison, shot dead because they weren’t you. We are the same, Rosemary, when we hold our middle fingers up. Those who say we are offensive for the sake of being offensive are the ones we set out to offend. If you were here I’d pour you three shots of tequila at a time and we’d take turns shouting our favorite obscenities, and throw darts at a picture of that bastard Joe, who kicked America in the teeth when she was her hungriest, most anemic and depraved. I bet you’d drive a convertible, Rosie. I bet you’d have a whole closet just for scarves perfectly suited to be swept away going eighty miles per hour down Route 1.
J.P. Amador is a Cuban-American poet from Miami, Florida. After graduating from Florida State University with a Bachelor of Arts, J.P. moved to Brooklyn, New York to pursue a career in writing, yet was quickly disillusioned by the opportunities available. The demeanor of suits in marketing and advertising left a sour taste in his mouth. However, with his love for poetry and the city present as ever, J.P. took a job as a barista, serving coffee and quietly working on his poetry. After a year of steaming milk for often ungrateful customers, J.P. decided to compile his most insightful and frustrating works into his very first manuscript, Poems No. 1. In his spare time, J.P. loves to cook, watch baseball, and noodle on his guitar.
Grand Little Things 