








































e Lindgren 

1onth. 

)fa nail. 

Nick Wort 

Nicotine 

You smelled like my past staring back through a microphone, the voice of a siren 
when I was younger. How we would dive through the streets and jump in front of 
moving trains. Madness and loathing, an agoraphobic fit. The way you spun and 
trembled as the needle landed in the maze, the way you sang and cried and bled on 
my feet. The holes in my shoes were like pencils falling from the sky. 

Elliot died almost ten years ago. And I still sing that song. The nurses never came. 
The Christmas tree's still there. They gallop through town towards each other. 

Jousting is the official sport of Maryland. We sped through the night and talked 
the sea away, he was left in the basement. I can still smell the bum; it tasted like 
absinthe and shellac records. I couldn't sleep through the caterwaul and music. I 
wrote your name on a postcard. It tastes like American Spirits and whiskey from a 
well. Your lips look like a lit mattress on a match. 

The fuse was lit and I pulled it in. Heavy machinery blew by the window. Fog lifted 
through the strings and fire. There was a cigar box on the floor, it belonged to you. 

I'm going to tum your dad in, because I fucking hate you. But I'll never say why. 
We were trapped in a tub. You burst into a waterfall and smiled like Buddha. I 
shook like Haile Selassie. 

There was a cigar box on the floor. 

19 


