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Bouquet Triptych
           with a line by R. Dwayne Betts

there is a
difference
between a
schizo’ &
any other
crazy on the
street
him
the one
live downstairs
in the first apt
when you come in
through the front
way     he the
poster child for
paranoid
one week off
his meds &
he got everybody
sniffin for
the scent of gasoline
or sneakin up
the fire
escape
because no one
want a bullet
lodged in the head
a trench
knife plunged
beneath the
shoulder blade
all ‘cause
they wanna
take the stairs
there is a

difference
between a
fiend &
any other
crazy on the
street
him
the one
sittin over there
beneath the light
chewin on his ugly
words      hyper
off that candy
stuff    he a bona fide
cracked head
see how he always got
some trinket to sell
a fresh change of clothes
he got a
home somewhere
& everything
in it got a price    that little rock
consuming everything
escape!
because no one
not even that demon
inside his sunken head
can hide
a conversation      make
sense of his high   anymore
his mouth a blade       a slick
skin      a taut brown leather
stretch around
his busy skull
there is a difference


between the
drunk
sleepin outside
crazy    feverish on the
couch in my lobby
on the other side of my wall
takes some gettin used to
i hear
the chronic cough
see the bulb sizzlin out
beneath the door
he fear discovery
in his dim
crushed throat        he the
sufferer              prison
the sinner’s bouquet
a halo circling his illness
never beat the bottle
love missin
what they used to have
now mean nothin       cheatin
became his life
& he can’t
escape
because no one
wanna lose
the gift of a sound mind
the difference      shallow
good between him & i
reality is a dream for us both  a
blade-thin difference
fills cells
the money
a dividing wall
and it be prison



by Joy Priest

Joy Priest is a writer born and raised in Louisville, KY. She has received fellowships and grants from Callaloo, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and Rutgers University-Newark, where she will be an MFA in Poetry candidate beginning Fall 2015. Her poems and essays have been published or are upcoming in pluck! Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture, Drunken Boat, Best New Poets 2014, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop, among others.
ISSN 2157-8079
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