A POEM by TRAVIS SHOSA

Worth

She’s feeding me fries from her cleavage

while her boyfriend watches Wayne’s World

again in the other room, and it feels

like last rites. Some sad window of life

pans across my eyes: the scowl of her mother,

skipped classes to eat at Luby’s, a skipped prom,

lots of skipping.

I’m going to have a baby,

she whispers as she sticks a stale one

in my mouth, and I freeze

as the glass shatters.

It’s not yours,

she smiles.

She tells me about her boyfriend’s well-off grandmother,

how she poked holes in his rubbers, that

her life is a mess and this could make her get her shit together.

From the other room, I hear her boyfriend laugh.

Wayne and Garth are saying we’re not worthy.

I laugh too because none of us deserve this.

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Travis Shosa (they/them) is a writer from Spring, TX. Their poetry is featured or forthcoming in Stanchion, Maudlin House, BRUISER, Burial Magazine, Eulogy Press, The Bloomin’ Onion, Some Words, Michigan City Review of Books, and others. They have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Their journalism has been featured in Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, The Line of Best Fit, PAPER, and others. They run Dodo Eraser, a lit mag and reading series.