ISSUE 6
Patrick Meeds
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The Great American Car Crash
It’s an unteachable moment.
A constant do over. It’s the
last man on the moon and
the minor league home run king.
It’s real blood but canned laughter.
It’s being buried under thousands
of pounds of cotton candy.
It’s starting at the finish line
and leaving yourself behind.
It’s new year’s eve in February
and mother’s day on Mars.
It’s sleeping on eggshells
and walking on a bed of nails.
It’s dreaming all night of
throwing punches that never land.
It’s being in the hospital
and somewhere on your floor
there’s a guy who just won’t stop
screaming. It’s medicine that cures
you but only after it makes you
really sick first. It’s the Devil’s tritone
and Robert Johnson dying for our sins.
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Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe, New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Atticus Review, Whiskey Island, Guernica, The Pinch, and Nine Mile Review, among others.