One More Bad Day by Tracy Mishkin

I burn words. Wrong and right fuse. I pick at my thoughts like sores, twist in hot wind. What’s the use? I smoke, throw stones at my own home. I slink off, come back the same, my head the butt of a charred torch. Damn the sun that blasts my cool dark room with light. I shoot through stone and flame out, flush with rage. Clash and rip stitch, I scorch. Lap up truth and spit lies. I’ve lost shame. Short words and a rough side hug. I don’t care. When I give up, I mean it.

Tracy Mishkin is a call center veteran with a PhD and a graduate of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Butler University.  She is the author of two chapbooks, I Almost Didn’t Make It to McDonald’s (Finishing Line Press, 2014) and The Night I Quit Flossing (Five Oaks Press, 2016).