Today is no different from any other day.
I was born in Wyoming
demons came through windows at night.
I wore a cowboy shirt
and shiny cap guns,
my bangs combed to the side.
I hid behind toilets.
I was scared of the bell at school so
a black kid named Wilbur walked me out.
His mom called me the white devil
and I probably was.
There was a tornado
and all I saved was my plastic horses.
My parents divorced
and I became a little girl.
holding my dad’s leg
until he pushed me away.
I weighed 76 pounds in junior high
but still believed
I could be a basketball star.
I became angry
I cut a hole in a pillow and fucked it-
it felt like the right thing to do.
I never kissed a girl.
I was scared of vatos.
I picked up a skateboard
they accepted me.
A lot of them are gone now
the rest are married.
I fell in love with punk rock.
I learned to fight
I felt love
I wrote poetry in math class
I started drinking
then came the drugs.
I moved to Omaha in winter
and came back in winter.
Arrested for concealed weapon
and violent and tumultuous act.
I watched sunsets over the Tetons
Fell in love with a southern belle.
She left as the aspens burned.
The sky was bigger then.
Ended up in Tucson with a duffel bag
and a three day hallucinations.
Saw the Dead before they died.
Found painkillers and 40 oz.
Lived in a bus.
Stopped writing poetry.
Found more painkillers
and killer cocaine
found a woman
my dad found a needle in my arm.
Bought a house
Couldn’t get in Canada
found heroin on the streets of Portland
bought needles where Drugstore Cowboy was filmed
I was cool I was gorgeous
dope sick initiation in the back of a Volkswagen
Fisherman’s Wharf Donner Pass
Reno was a blur
Started a band
Scored on Larimer Street everyday
under the clock tower
Denver Colorado
worked in wood factory
shot up in bathroom
employee of the month
Steve died
Nathan died
Mark died
handcuffed
broke my leg
the lights went out
shit in a bucket
cooked dope by candle light
lost my house
brother went to rehab
lost my cat
lost my soul
robbed motorcycle gangs
one morning I prayed.
About the author:
Jason “Juice” Hardung’s work has been published widely through the American underground. Appearing in The New York Quarterly, Zygote In My Coffee, Underground Voices, decomP, Thrasher, Lummox Journal, Heroin Love Songs, Polarity, Up The Staircase, St. Vitus Press to name a few. He has a chapbook, Breaking The Hearts Of Robots out on Covert Press, and is completing The Broken and the Damned, a chapbook published by Epic Rites Press. He is co-editor of the Front Range Review and Matter Journal. Writing, for him, is something that soothes the savage beast, or whatever it’s called. He is on probation for the next two years and hopes to have a novel done by then. He lives in Ft. Collins Colorado and loves it there, but doesn’t like all the Subarus with kayaks strapped to the roofs, the earth tone sweaters, Teva sandals, or white kids in Reggae bands.
