there is a way to go

there’s a party upstairs

or a club

and an indeterminate number

of paranoid visions

dancing through this throbbing head

i ask them to

hold it down

they ask me to

prove my existence

i say

it’s getting harder every day

but i’ll try

i point out

friends who have taken the bus

out of town

only to reappear in fleeting dreams

are they any less real?

is there a difference

between leaving this city

and dying?

they shrug

and resume their noise-making

i make a grocery list

and listen to

the thunder rolling in



By: Jake Adams