Garden State Slammer

The only rhythm in my chest
comes from the bass
of the black car beside me
in the parking lot
of McDonald's.

I'm so bored I could die.
So I'll smoke some more marijuana
day dream of hotel rooms in Toledo,
car rides down route 66 with
the mid-western breeze
on my balding scalp

There has to be something better
than the sea foam of the Atlantic
with her social security lullabies,
Beer chugging union workers
toast the garden state to sleep
with sand in their boots
and decimal points in their heads.

America's armpit wants me to trade
the muse for a white jacket and a knife.
Cutting meat is a respected profession:
seventy thousand in blood money
is enough to start a life,
enough to buy a ring,
raise a couple of kids,
pay off that credit card debt
and die

Damian Rucci is a writer and poet from New Jersey whose work has recently appeared in Beatdom, Eunoia Review, Poetry Breakfast and basements and coffee shops across the United States. He is the author of two chapbooks Tweet and Other Poems (Maverick Duck Press 2016) and A Symphony of Crows (Indigent Press 2015) and a split Former Lives of Saints (EMP 2017 w/ Ezhno Martin). He was the founder of the Poetry in the Port reading series and editor of Street Poet Review.