Radioactive Beach Hypothesis Illustration, Elly Call

[Trigger Warning: Brief depiction of drug use and addiction]

and isn’t it crazy how cocaine ate through my family

like vultures? the powder dances in both my grandfathers’

noses. mr. greene fell in love in Baltimore, st. paul’s and north;

back then, treating your nose was like memory;

now, the zombies tightrope the empty carcass of a city

i call second home like the second mother my father had

and hated. mr. woods disappeared and left behind only a picture

of him holding a sunrise upwards on a peddle bike. that freebase hit

and they were gone just like the unc’s in Lexington Market.

and isnt it crazy how Chris and i lock ourselves in the rib cage

of this townhome for hours, high and horny? isn’t it crazy, this poem

could be just a footnote in another book?