Paige Johnson

A Secret After Party (ASAP) 

Gravel bouncing off the megaphone
Of some sidewalk grifter’s pity party,
Asking anti-Capitalists to hit up his Ca$htag,
Passing out pre-landfill leaflets on eco-terrorism. 

These days, 
I prefer the candor and clamor 
of Black Israelites.
At least they mean it 
and they’re not self-hating 
when they scream,
No parody of privilege 
shrugging off a pedigree 
to sell grinders to shakers.

These nights, 
I prefer to walk the cratered streets 
with the moon the only curse-worthy whiteness, 
my solo passenger, as I skip another class on existentialism,
sick of the professor with a ratty bob 
proclaiming the end of the world 
like a cardboard-toting Jesus freak, 
claiming we’ll all be choking 
on seaweed before grad school.

The South Beach bars 
have been under water 
since they opened, 
but then again, 
Liquor has never led to sound planning 
or shied away from an insurance scam. 
It’s where you go to take 
on a Tuesday bloat 
even in the best of times.   
Drown me in a river 
rimmed with salt 
and orange-peel garnish

And I’ll die a DeSoto saint, 
conservative when I come to,
But it’s all relative to the 
loser olympics on campus.

Revived on counterfeit 
big pharma Flintstones 
I found on the floor, 
I sink into the cement again, 
absorbing the graffiti gang signs,
seeing construction cones as buoys 
and liking them that way.
I fall in lockstep with the other 
Wavy-walking, smudge-eye grrls,
Envying their salty exteriors 
that come off more strategic 
Than breeze-begotten, 
weather-eroded, 
or college-bought.   

They wear headphones in the club, 
more content off their own mix
And whichever hides in their purses, 
canceling the noise 
Of dick jockeys, static MCs, 
and other slack-jaw jivers.
Hip-checking and chin-swaying, 
they laugh off the come-ons
Of CHUD hucksters and 
creepy Che-shirters, asking, 
“Doesn’t anyone want to 
enjoy themselves anymore?”