We Joog

inside the walls of this crunchy saloon / lie saturday night hearts filled with angst / Folks / frustrated from the inflation / even the rule / makers are filled with hatred / inside the walls of this raggedy tavern are sons and daughters / whose families didn’t pay enough attention like a dog fighting for a glance from their owner’s / fixated brow ogling some stupid app on their iphone / inside the walls of this decrepit dive bar / are pirates / with peg legs / looking—to feast on someone’s trauma / in the name of personal satisfaction / yes, this is a tavern that matches the reality of our society / there is nothing / perfect inside of it / except / for the highest proof libation / dangling out of the bottle into your cup like a Vince Carter Dunk / liquor waterfall rush of 99 bananas, or Everclear / or some other shit that probably would be better suited to disinfect blacktop scrapes or war wounds / this bar gives / about as many fucks as this prose stream of consciousness is attempting to care less about overwhelming your senses /  with this appetizer platter’s worth of images / to explain the decrepitness of this retro-fitted arcade where you can blaze / where every Saturday a group of bridesmaids are in here getting white girl wasted / on Mike’s Hard Lemonade while Lemonade by Beyoncé plays over the loudspeakers / even though these days we are in the Renaissance age / nonetheless / hits are hits / we joog and jive / and vibe as her lyrics ooze out of the pores inside the DJ’s speakers / we tune out the feedback it gives off  / because we know this is a jank ass hookah lounge  / the spot in which we fell in love / and when this mutha shut down / we rode / down the backway of Alabama Street in that Lyft / the driver was turnt when he heard us say we were going to eat at the Houston Breakfast Klub. the squad wasn’t into all of that and Braxton is allergic to half of everything on the menu so when the Lyft driver dropped us off / we decided to dip like that Freak Nasty song / which was coincidentally / played earlier in that hookah bar that we were just at a place where the smoke was thicker than chocolate tapioca pudding / but regret, was not /

Chris L. Butler is a Black American-Dutch poet-essayist from Philadelphia, PA living in Canada. He is the author of two chapbooks, most recently Sacrilegious (Fahmidan Publishing & Co, 2021). His work can be read in The Pinch, Southern Florida Poetry Journal, APIARY Mag, Variant Literature, Lucky Jefferson, and others.