cw: mentions of violence

I always drive about ten miles per hour
over the limit, always sing, but today
in the Toyota, belting out “Search
and Destroy,” I’m not imagining myself
under the violating glare of stage lights,
as blonde and lithe as impossible Pop;

                                          the first time
I saw The Silence of the Lambs--
that curly blonde was alone in her car
tapping the steering wheel, her own
bass drum, and she really believed
in that deliverance after all it was a great
big world 

                            before being punched out
in the back of an abductor’s van.

And we were fourteen. And my boyfriend said,
“She deserves to die for singing
so bad.” Yeah, she was at the top of her
lungs, but Tom Petty had promised
we all had a way out.

---

Brittany Ober teaches at the American Language Program at Columbia University. Her chapbook Easy Beat was published by Dancing Girl Press in 2010. Her poetry has been published in Canteen, Gutter Eloquence, wicked alice, Ample Remains, The Aurora Journal, Breadcrumbs, and Words & Whispers. She lives in (and loves) Queens, New York.

← previous

issue three

next →

header: Lucas Pezeta via Pexels