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Tommy Johnson Mar 2014
Quincy Valero
Everybody’s best friend
Jet black hair
Shiny brown eyes
A boyish smirk
Standing six foot something
Coming out of catholic school agnostic
Attending state college

Every word that came out of his mouth was a riot
A funny story of a bad situation he was in that he can laugh at now
An awkward moment with a girl he tried to get in bed
God awful train rides with a clueless conductor

Quincy Valero
A wanna-be Casanova
The irish-italian self-proclaimed “Don Juan of Dumont”
Roaring down the suburb streets in his bright yellow mustang
From Bergen county to Trenton
Edgewater to Ewing
Bumping R&B; from the 90's

A main girl
A side chick
And a few back pocket broads
Leading them on
To where?
I’m not even sure he knows

Quincy Valero
My best friend since I’ve been here in Purgatory
My lifelong cellmate
My hetero life mate
My brother of second thought
Our token white boy

He’s had his ups
Wild ragers until day break
A four way with me and two girls in my four door sedan
He’s had is downs
Falsely charged with domestic abuse
Community service, endless court room hearings, suspensions and a whole bunch of nonsense

Quincy Valero
The quintessential example of the modern day male
Stays up all night
Sleeps all day
Opportunistic
Egotistical
Miserly
*****
And hungry

Always aching to put in his two cents
And leaving everyone in a howl of laughter
An Adderall popping
Seasoned drinker
A professional *** smoker, coached by yours truly
Fast talking baritone voice
With a half serious tone

Yes, Quincy Valero
The tight plain white t-shirt wearing
Chino sporting
Nostalgic, slightly racist, sexist, anti-semitic
Bust usually honest, friendly and apologetic
Good hearted dude we all love to hate
And hate to love

Bed-headed
Pajama bottom ***
Talking about his Svedka regrets
And we laugh and laugh and the stupidest things
Then remember events that seem so long ago
And then make plans for tomorrow
Yeah, one of my best friends
My oldest friend
That’s Mr. Quincy Valero
Last week I got an urge to lay on a rooftop, and drink ***** under the stars,
so I packed an empty backpack with svedka, a notebook, and a cellphone; and went on a mission.
I spent an afternoon looking around.
Taking notes on how in the hell, I could get up to a place that was flat, a roof, and could see the stars.

As it turns out,
the rooftops are not a place Freeport wants you to be.

in fact, one staircase directly leading to the top of a building specifically said
"No Trespassing"
Keeping me out with a locked metal door.

so I kept adventuring.

It did not occur to me until after I had already spent quite awhile scribbling down notes on locations of
milk crates I could use,
ledges low enough to grab,
dumpsters I could maybe move over just a bit,

how illegal it may be,
(I'M still not sure)
Or how dangerous it may be
(probably quite very)
To go on this adventure.

I texted a beautiful girl and asked if she wanted to drink ***** under the stars.

being the suave romantic that I am,

Having spent my whole morning surveying different routes to the rooftops.

Having planned out such a storybook evening, obviously her answer was,

"nah, I'd rather stay home, smoke ****, and watch the new season of Orange is the new black."

*******, Ruby Rose...
Stop. stealing. my dates.

After introducing myself to a handful of other potential candidates, I finally find a woman who believes climbing onto a rooftop and drinking ***** would be a swell time.

By the time I pick her up and get back to the spot,
it's late enough that Freeport is a ghost town.
We run down the middle of the street, me dragging her, doctor and companion style towards the first flawless plan:

Milkcrates behind linda beans.

We stack them up like steps and walk up to the top of a metal ceiling
Affixed perfectly above a flight of stairs that leads to the top floor.
I thought, "maybe we could climb the metal ceiling like a ramp."

it turns out
that not only is it
incredibly difficult not to
fall off of a slanted flimsy ramp
with no handles. But it is also: Terrifying!

Eventually I make it to the top and realize:
"****, There is still a tall ledge I have to hoist myself onto"
I look down to the short brunette quivering
on the ramp's lowest tier and decide that there is no way either of us were going to make it.

"Hey rose, " (That wasn't her real name)
Let's try a different way up.

attempting to crawl down slowly,
my **** scoots forward, hands behind me,
I slip and start gliding down like a children's slide.
flailing and attempting to catch myself before
falling off the edge and plummeting onto a dumpster.

(Whistling noises)

Thud!

She screams.
I laugh uncontrollably.

She slowly descends our statuesque landmark milkcrate staircase.
Like an angel coming from ghetto heaven.

I lift myself up and hop down off the dumpster.

putting my backpack down,
I check to see if the ***** bottle is okay.
It's fine.

"Good job, *******."
"We're fine."
"You're an idiot."
"I could have died, don't I at least get a kiss or something?"

She gives me a disapproving look, then kisses me.

eventually we did
make it up to a rooftop,
Where we laid and watched the stars.
They were warm, distant, and beautiful.

I liked feeling their glow on my skin.
But I loved taking the journey to meet them.
Sean Flaherty Apr 2014
Sometimes it’s something, as 
Simple and clean, tapping my
***** hat forwards, and 
Kicking my back heel against
The wall. 

Sometimes it’s the dank cavern
Of a Dodge’s backseat. 
The frozen entrance to the
Diseased freeway, breathing words 
Of tragedy and paranoia. 

But, sometimes, it’s
The painted landscape of a
Beach, that hung in the
Girl’s TV room, Lodged in place. 

I contact my mind’s
Travel agent, to find it, and 
Wearing Ricky’s sweatshirt I
Stare at the open water. 
Mindful of sharks,
And the smell of ***,
Or sometimes, Svedka. 

Or I’ll stare into Sam’s eyes,
Wishing instead to be 
Spying the bottom of
Jacky’s bottle.
Or Mary’s bowl. 

And when my *** hits the ground,
I’ll look up, this time,
And just like last time, the
Trees will melt. Dripping like
Engine sludge, onto a pavement.
Behind the pool of
Vaporized reality, walls of
Fire rise, so I’ll sit
Back a bit. 

But sometimes, it is too much. 
And I’m down on my
****** kneecaps, 
Appealing to the apparitions. 
Begging for a 
Box of wine.
Even after you've been stuck, somewhere, and get out...
Ricky was the kid in the bed next to me.
I hate sleeping with other people around.
kategoldman Nov 2013
Silky smiled girls
With cups tipped off of saturdays doubts
Validating infidelity for a firm grasp
Graffiti sideways winks
Your only as remarkable as your last debute
Born again to a word offering baptisms in svedka
Your vices tattood on a list of hymns
Find solice in no mans company
Bring faith on your knees to a boy who can't speak his name
Your body is a temple with access through insecurity
Bless me father it has been two drinks since my last confession
Silky smiled girls
Make no home for validation in weekend crimes
Denxai Mcmillon Feb 2016
I often find myself sitting vacantly waiting for something to happen.
The sun explodes,
We die,
The world ends.
It happens even more on days like today;
The sky is grey
The snow is melting only to almost instantaneously freeze into ice
And I'm inside,
Laying on the couch in the billiards room,
Attempting to take in some form of natural light.
I'm lost in the sea of my thoughts
And much like scooping water with my hands
I'm unable to hold on to the thoughts of my stressors long enough to work through them.
I've been listening to less and less music
Yet
I still wear my headphones so people won't bother me.
I'm giving up on "living" for now
And
Focusing on feeling alive.
I haven't skated, comfortably, in months
Run for even longer.
I've been drinking more and more trying to escape from my stress filled days.
I'm turning on the vacancy sign in my body.
So that a demon can posses it and run my life into the ground for me,
Because I no longer want to exist any longer.
Kimberly Rose Jan 2015
The day you left me
I lost my mind in a bottle of Svedka,
And found the old me
Hiding in a blade.
Healy Fallon Mar 2016
You are the rose with fake petals
You are the diamonds worth less than lipsticks

You are the Converse with untied laces
You are the Svedka mixed with tears

You are the jacket that was thrifted,
You are the star with a light switch

You are the angel with foam wings,
You are the unseen thorn in the garden

You are the cigarette smoke that drifts
You are the needles in the dear sewing kit

You are the duchess of comfortable silence
You are the countess of disclusion

You are the sweetest pill in the box,
but the most bitter drink in the afternoon
Alyssa Nov 2015
I am not
    tall
not jack and the
giant growth spurt,
been small bean
tiny roots my
whole life.
I am
adult child
tippy toes to kiss
those who turn
their cheek every time.
I am not
sunny enough for
anyone to live off me.
I am
9:30 pm
blacked out drunk
photo in front of
my universities chapel
because i never remember
when i find god
or if i ever
really did.
i am
that last bit of
cough syrup you saved
for the day you
got better,
the autosave
on google drive
before your laptop ***** you
and crashes in the middle
of your midterm paper.
I try my hardest
to make you better,
keep you intact,
but i can’t change
why you needed me
in the first place.
I am not
made right,
cookie crumbles
instead of melt in your
mouth
i am hard
to swallow.
151 christening
the back of my throat
while you whimper
after one shot of
strawberry lemonade svedka.
That’s sangria to me, that’s
water
to me.
I promise you
I will teach you how
to chug,
how to make wince
look like wink
look like smooth
waterfall thunder
crashing into gut
as long as you
are willing to open throat.
I am not
batten-down-the-hatches
outdoor basement lock
i am
panic room
all the food and drink
you need in me
i am plentiful
i am enough
sometimes
i am too much
i am the
over drinker the
too ****** the
too much fight
too much love
not enough balance
i am
clumsy
not enough equilibrium
between my ears
maybe that’s why i am
queen of miscommunication
queen of misunderstandings
queen of “can you
say that again? i
didn’t quite hear you.
I am drowning
through waves of
something that looks a lot
like water but it
burns good enough to
quench”
I am
******* disguised as
train wreck
i needed an excuse
to be in the hospital
just to check out
of life for a few days,
lay in bed for a few days
feel too small
to go to work for a few days
because i am
tired of having to act big
seem tall
when i am
small bean
tiny roots
have been my whole life.
But i am
starting somewhere
i am growing
going somewhere
i am
just waiting for
the next rainfall
to wash away these
pesticides.
I am waiting
for the day i become
balanced and
i can stand up without
bumping into some
other clumsy part of me,
i can look at her
and ask her why she’s still
here because
i am
here now.
i am
plentiful
I am
enough.
q Dec 2018
first kiss
you left me with
sandy toes and smiling lips
there was no heartbreak here
no regret
this was easy and carefree
thank you

second kiss
you left me
with the word love
hanging on my tongue
and a 14 minute phone call
to tell me
you could no longer love me
that i was not enough
that you wanted different things
you left me without warning
parts of me are still holding on
to pieces and memories of you
i am still upset

third kiss
you made me feel beautiful
when i needed it most
you made me feel wanted
i think in that way
we both used each other
there were no tears to cry
i am grateful

fourth kiss
when mango svedka
tastes more like assault
than it does alcohol
and your laugh
sounds like a sign to run
i am still scared
of the person
that you left me as
i am still trying to cope

fifth kiss
when you asked
if everything was okay
it felt like a gift
and an act of kindness
you were respectful
of my boundaries
when i needed it most
you helped piece me back together

sixth kiss
i kissed you at a party
there was no romance
no memories
no ties
i felt good walking away

seventh kiss
i have not met you yet
i do not have any expectations
i just hope
you do not leave me broken
like the others
and if you do
i will be there
to piece myself together
Shawn Callahan Oct 2018
I've fallen in love with Self-Deprecation.
I found her teetering the edge
of Self-Destruction

Testing Her limits with every acquaintance.

She lets Her life hang in the doorframe
either land on her feet
or the knot takes Her name

Teasing bad decisions with Svedka soaked sexts.

I've fallen in love with inception.
I left Self in an echo of a room
against cement bricks of incarceration.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
From Jess's Lips Jan 2017
At first, you think a thief in the night
has come to take you away.
And though you know that can’t be right,
you pick the truth that suits you.

A bump, a grunt, an earsplitting curse,
all signs that point to heartbreak.
Not thieves at all, but that means it’s worse--
Dad’s coming up to your room.

You throw your blankets over your head.
He makes his way up the stairs,
all sweaty cheeks and feet made of lead,
all cruel thunder and bluster.

You wish that he would pour it all out,
the drink that makes him this way.
You want to kick and you want to shout
and break your turtle figurines,

the ones he buys you every time
he smashes your lamp to pieces
or you make his blood pressure climb
by being small and worthless.

What’s next, more holes punched into the wall?
Or maybe red-faced screaming?
How can your dad love alcohol
more than he ever loved you?

The Svedka never braided his hair
or scratched his back or hugged him.
It didn’t have a father who wasn’t there
even when he was.

Hide under the blankets for now,
little lamb. It’ll all be okay real soon.
This is the last time he’ll come to your room
full of fire and mixed drinks.
You’ll still be afraid and broken inside,
but at least he’ll be broken, too.
Sorry for the noisy rhymes... But actually, I'm not. :P
Amanda Apr 2015
I still share stories of us...
to strangers, and to people that never knew you.
I paint a lovely picture of those memories and my tool is the knife you left stabbed in my back, right between my shoulder blades.
The blood has this thickness that helps portray this realness that
is unlike any other medium once it's delicately laid upon a canvas.
I've passed your apartment stoop, hoping you'd be sitting there with a stale beer and a cheap menthol drag dangling from your *******.
Even though it's never you sitting there, the same stench of *** and
the aroma of Svedka still drifts around the humid city air.
It causes a whirlwind of emptiness in my head and I'm never
able to clear my thoughts of you completely.
When I look up at night and see the millions of stars making their headlining appearances in the dark, I always wonder if we'll ever be
discovering the exact same one like we found each others hearts.
But then I remember, just like losing sight of a star in the sky, we lost each others hearts and you chose to never try searching for mine again.
Well,
four parts to be exact

I left three chunks of skin

And my old favorite hat

We drank too much Svedka
As we waded in the banks

The broken glass inside my hand
Was the closest thing to "thanks"

Four in the morning,
Too drunk for the E.R.

The stitches you put in my hand
Will forever leave a scar

You said letting yourself go
Was the best way to spend the day

But Katie, when I look at you
I only see someone who's run away

I thought I could help you find a home
Behind the Minnehaha Falls and flats

But I think I only lost myself

And, of course, my favorite hat
I always chase the runners, but this one's ran to far.

Also, I broke my phone; so I haven't been updating as much as I'd like the past week, and probably wont be able to for the next week or so. Unless I can sneak onto my roommates laptop again >.<
Scribo-Dolorum Apr 2015
“Is it the nicotine, or the Svedka?

It’s barely midnight, and I’m already exhausted.
I’ve been up and down 309 about a hundred times today, and I’m looking to go a hundred times more.

I got an English paper due Friday, but I’m still drinking Thursday.

A friend is eight shots in, with eight shots to go.
We are the harbingers of our own demise.

Here’s to the nights we remember.

And here’s to the nights
we’d rather not.”

12:07 a.m, Sunday, March 22, 2015
- j.d
it turns out that
the answers aren't
at the bottom of a
Svedka bottle.
Cody Cooke Feb 2019
Bottles of alcohol squat on the counter, and cigarette butts
like yellow dead June bugs on the floor.
Bottles of shimmering reasons to not care about a hangover,
to leave prom early and rejoice in your parent’s absence.
Glistening necks, elegant glass nubs with no cap
tipped up into mouths screaming proud and hoarse,
We are STUPID! And CONTAGIOUS!
our ***** voices breaking under the radio sound
to a loud song whose generation no longer cares.
But we do, dumb boys and girls in a truck, rolling around town
like Haylee’s bottle of Jack Daniels in the trunk—
aimless, optimistic, and looking for reasons, so
buy a pack at the Chevron and let’s go smoke!
That’s enough, after all, isn’t it?
Reason enough to crack the windows, find a Carlyss backroad,
waste away midnight and half a tank of gas.
Still, as I drive on, a 90s rock station stimulating rotation of the spliff,
that smell puts my mind out of guitar solos and into placid hallways,
Smells Like a night in my dad’s apartment,
the stubbly couch with the nicotine blanket,
the Marlboro tone in the air, concrete crumbs and a lighter’s grating chrrt.
Divorce sounds like alcohol—
a word that burns, something sterilizing and for adults only.
But I don’t care, it’s my turn on the spliff,
and the backseat of my truck sounds more Alive
than the old horror movie rentals he would put on.
And why should I worry about what sobriety means
when we’ve been planning this night for months now?
All stocked up on Bacardi and Smirnoff Ice, Captain Morgan’s, Svedka, Mike’s Hard,
Swisher Sweets wrapped up in the **** bag—
We shoot our ***, soldiers eager to start the war,
that war against a domestic unknown enemy,
an enemy dangerous and subversive, like sober-minded aspirations.
And while Zack rolls the blunt, while Jack finds his Camel pack,
while you ask for a hit of Haylee’s cigarette,
I fill a glass with water, my intention to hydrate
exactly as genuine as my intention to forget about it.
gmb Oct 2018
perhaps i have not been completely honest,
with you, or myself,
i lie so often i start to believe it.
the worst of me is in the detail.
1. girl, puking blue raspberry svedka in the backseat. covered in bruises and tripping over herself in the january snow, too drunk to stand.
2. girl, she likes it when it hurts. yours were not the first inside me, i lied about this too. the door didn’t lock so she pushed the chair in front of it, put her hand over my mouth, told me to be quiet. i closed my eyes and counted to ten; once, twice, until it ended.

i bound broken bones together in silence as to not disturb her sleeping, crunching adderall between my teeth and swallowing the paste with apple juice. i bandaged myself together every night.
i have been supporting this weight all my life.
“i never meant to hurt you, i
was just taking my share of the meat.”

you are as sick as i expected.
Julia Plante Aug 2017
i used to love the smell of gasoline.
eight years old,
suede seats,
breathing in as my mother filled the tank.

yesterday,
as i took my mother's place
eleven years later,
gasoline smells like *****.

as i inhaled,
insects buzzing akin to the fluorescent lights above,
it reeked of my lack of inhibitions.
my lack of restraint.
my inability to keep myself away from you.
and yet
i would still go out of my way
to keep the fragrance near me.

you are gasoline.
you are *****.
you are the empty svedka bottle lying on the floor.

your beautiful, beautiful liquid poison rots my ribs.
i am slowly killing myself for you
but i'll be ******
because i can't stop reeling us counting constellations
within my spinning projector mind.

there are so many reasons as to why i should stop myself.
hell,
you're the reason for the never-healing cat scratches on my forearm,
but you're an effortless mosaic of a human being.

your laughter is light.
internally you are genuine.
i can only see the flowers in your eyes
and yet they are nonetheless poisonous.

i hope that one day
i can turn your storm clouds
to warm rain.

all the better for dancing.

— The End —