The City of Cowboy Killers
Desert clouds as dark and black as in-
k, Marlboros fall from the sky like hail.
Kids rush from the nearby town with buckets every
time it rains. They dance a dance called the whisp
until their buckets are brimming and filled of
cigarettes, then, balancing the pails on their heads, they chain smoke
and walk back home. The town has roads that
are made of tar stomped from ciggie butts, ash drifts
pushed to the curbs, with hand rolled houses proudly lined through
either side of main street. The tourists and postcards call her
“Centralia, the city that is meant to be put between your lips”
–
Inhale every whisp of smoke that drifts through her lips.
Jake
I wish I had a name that looked good
when it was written in blue icing
on a birthday cake.
The unsatisfying almost loop of the “j”
The long drawn out “a” sound that everyone
always tells me I say with an accent
and the rushed finale of a canceled
TV show that is the “k”
all because of that silent “e”
My name is not Jacob. It’s Jake.
Just Jake.
I had a bus driver when I was in elementary school that only called me Jacob,
and at 6:30 A.M and 2:45 P.M everyday
I prayed that bitch would crash us all into a telephone pole
and “Jacob” would be hurled through the windshield and skid across the asphalt of the highway
because school buses don’t have seatbelts.
I told that story to a girl I was talking to
freshman year of high school. She said she was surprised someone like me
would think something like that.
I have always chameleoned myself to be like whoever I was around,
I have always wanted people to look at me, but not yet,
not until I have found a skin that I am actually comfortable in.
A girl that I didn’t know was sitting at a table with another girl
that I was acquaintances with at my graduation ceremony.
“Who is that guy?”
“It’s just Jake. Hey.”
Editor’s note: It is recommended that one reads these pieces on a computer due to the spacing conventions.
Jake Price is a sophomore student at Susquehanna university pursuing a degree in creative writing. His work has been published in Rivercraft Magazine and Halcyon Days Magazine. He was born in Texas and currently resides in Pennsylvania. Writing has been a passion of his for as long as he can remember, and he hopes to one day make it into his career. He has grown an Instagram account where he posts his poetry, @nolenprice, and it has over 2900 followers as of writing this.
Grand Little Things 