dystopia.

i lie in the pitch, worshipping it. the one thing that stands between my six-foot-two paranoid schizophrenic
neighbor and i. outside his apt #1 he slurs                   shouts nigger!             at god’s throat
& there is only a rain-warped cedar door in his way. two finger-widths of air holding it from the ground
foyer light spilling in loud underneath                           a misaligned bolt         a malign head
hectoring the lobby (i am inhaling his cigarette). three inches of cracked wood, thinner than the walls,
keep damien from walking right                                   into the room              i rent
on a city corner. converted antebellum house, the teeth of it rotting. the ruins. last night he blocked
the staircase, demanded                                             with cuss words           a kiss
---- & ------ were w/ me then. how safe i felt while they made love in my bed after, so forgotten
facing the wall                                                             playing                       dead


by Joy Priest

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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.