Clifford Brooks
Blue lights,
SWAT, swerving, shouts.
Adderall free-for-all,
I’m out
and thrown about.
Blood drawn, still art,
naked, and scrawny.
Apathetic, parasitic,
rubber spoons,
bail money.
Anorexic,
moorings unbricked,
invisible fingers,
stitches, scheming,
murmuring
“This isn’t forever.”
Restless hands,
shoes sans laces,
ear plugs,
and Plexiglas faces.
This will hinder
my career.
Artist or not,
this endears me
to no one.
Yammering evenings,
twilight nearing
with windows
too low to see stars.
Seventeen days,
prison without bars,
I am an ant
in the back
of a police car.
Clifford Brooks (www.cliffbrooks.com) is a poet and founder of the Southern Collective Experience LLC (www.southerncollectiveexperience.com). He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his girlfriend, Carolyn.
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