Shot
– There’s no battery. Battery. The clock does not work without a battery. I don’t have time anymore.
– Give me the clock, I got it from my mother.
– There is no more mother.
– By the way, this house also belonged to my mother before.
– Let me light a cigarette.
– Don’t smoke at home!
– I don’t smoke, I’m nervous.
– Give me a lighter. Don’t you dare turn on the lighter. Don’t dare.
– Don’t touch me with your hands. We are not naked in bed for you to touch me.
– Do not smoke. Smoking kills the brain. Give me a lighter.
– Or maybe I want to die. Maybe I like being a fool. Don’t touch me.
– Give me the lighter.
– Don’t push me. What have you done? I dropped my lighter.
– Put out the fire!
– No, I smoke.
– Fire burns. Put out the fire.
– Take my lighter.
– Now everything will burn.
– It’s time to quit smoking. This is a bad habit.
– Let me go ahead, I’m in a hurry. Sorry. Excuse me, is this a funeral agency?
– No, girl, this is a language translation agency.
– Sorry. Let me back out. I need a coffin.
– Why a coffin?
– A coffin for my husband.
– What happened to him?
– Fire.
– It’s me.
– Where did you go? Why do I have to clean up after a fire alone? And it’s all your fault… you touched me and I dropped my lighter because of it…
– I ordered a coffin for you.
– А? For what?
– I care about you.
– Thank you. What coffin? You’re crazy?
– I’m already tired of you.
– Ah…
Mykyta Ryzhykh has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and has been published many times in the journals Dzvin, Dnipro, Bukovinian magazine, Polutona, Tipton Poetry Journal, Stone Poetry Journal, Divot journal, dyst journal, Superpresent Magazine, Allegro Poetry Magazine, Alternate Route, Better Than Starbucks, Littoral Press, Book of Matches, TheNewVerse News, Acorn haiku Journal, The Wise Owl, Verse-Virtual, Scud, Fevers of the Mind, LiteraryYard, PLUM TREE TAVERN, ITERANT, Fleas on the Dog, The Tiger Moth Review, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Angel Rust, Neologism Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal, QLRS, The Crank, Chronogram, The Antonym, Monterey Poetry Review, Five Fleas Itchy Poetry, Ranger magazine, PPP Ezine, Bending Genres Journal, Rat’s Ass Review, Cajun Mutt Press, minor literatures, Audience Askew Literary Journal, Spirit Fire Review, The Gravity of the Thing, Ballast Journal, Star 82 Review, The BeZine, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Synchronized Chaos, boats against the current, The Decadent Review, Corvus Review, American Diversity Report, Unlikely Stories, Triggerfish Critical Review, The Moth, Ripple Lit, Rock & Sling, Meniscus, Rabid Oak, ZiN Daily, Stone of Madness, The Cortland Standard, Quarter Press, Schredder, Wilderness House Literary Review, Poetry Porch, Chewers & Masticadores, The Big Windows Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Third Wednesday, Cosmic Double, Dialogist, Consequence, Cool Beans Lit, Poets Choice, BarBar, and Ice Floe Press.
Banner Art: Nocturnal, a VISPO by Robert Frede Kenter (c) 2024.
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