Patrick Meeds

Yankee Cowboy Popstar

Sad eyed horses and willow trees.
I’ve got a Christmas coffin and a strong
man in the wings. I am an inside outsider 
and a minor chord thinker. Clock wise
therefore camera shy. I’ll admit
the laugh track isn’t funny if you’ll admit
that those are your teeth marks on my heart.
I think this is what they call test anxiety.
Let’s just forget that all my lies are true.
Every day I earthquake my emotions
and write the results on the wall.
Congratulations, you’re a millionaire,
now here’s a bucket full of rocks.
I just hope it’s not painful when the needle
is lifted off my life and the record stops
spinning.

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Patrick Meeds lives in Syracuse, NY and studies writing at the Syracuse YMCA’s Downtown Writer’s Center. He has been previously published in Stone Canoe, New Ohio Review, Tupelo Quarterly, the Atticus Review, Door is a Jar, Guernica, The Pinch and Nine Mile Review, among others. His first book, The Invisible Man’s Tailor, is available from Nine Mile Press.