High Horse

***Lucas Restivo is our first winner of the third annual T Paulo Urcanse Prize for Literary Excellence. We will be rolling out the winners every weekend for the next couple of weeks and then return to our irregular scheduled programming.***



Ain’t that the way 

I can approximate my life by how many glasses are left in the bottle 

I want to impregnate every woman in the world 

But my spine always creeps up from behind 

taps my shoulder and reminds 

me that I’m not an animal of prey 

praying for the homonym of its name

That something’s can’t be so easy

It’s a homework, homebound feeling

to the puddle of spreadsheet cells   

I’m always about to step in 

Where confession looks like concession

to the occasionally brilliant 

bad kid in the back 

with the crocodiles tear ducts  

It's the time of year where the sun don’t 

shine through my window in the morning

So I’m picking apart the picket fence

of my former estate, drinking non alcoholic 

at the beer Olympics 

and picturing a new kind of Ubermensch

One that the Ubermensch couldn't even picture 

And like a whoopie cushion moonlighting as a land mine 

I know how to sit with my mistakes 

and put on a brave face 

come night time 

The consequences have been awful 

which at a later date 

should mean great

I think  
 

 

Spherical

With the wisdom of a subject line
there’s a second Boston being built upon the original model.
I pay my rent by doing tarot readings with parking tickets
for bussed in Ohioans.

And I know it's the angel on my shoulder 
considering a career switch 
that leaves me feeling awful about it.

Your inbox blinks a single eye at you, keeping you in the loop - no ask.
And there’s a lymphatic insinuation to everything now,
and makes it impossible not to consider 

the perks of looking worse naked than clothed.
Or the nature of searching for a purer vessel
until there's no vessel at all.

We’re living through the golden age of rusting and that’s amazing. 
Something from today will be brought into tomorrow
and it'll be progress or conservation

and still a movie ad on a Dr. Pepper can will fully blow my mind.
I'm basically functionally useless

in the face of the animating force
and it's seemingly opposite, who says
love now has a language, five of them

when I hear my parents say webinar
 

Picking my nose

Somebody smells bad near me.
From now on 
I’m raking the lawn with a credit card, sprinklers on. 

It’s like an eggplant emoji on a Sunday evening
with a soft voice in the background screaming
maybe he’s a chef.

Or the difference between hunger and hungry is worth investigating,
or some things can only exist without question.

I’ve been less than lonely.
I’ve been waiting on a Wednesday night to do dishes and laundry,
to usher in reality with someone. 
And when it comes I’ll surely be seeing double.

And when it goes I’ll be seeing triple
at the hospital amphitheater dancing for a refill
of one perfect place 
to be put out to pasture.

Because there’s human and there’s nature
and they never quite add up to human nature.
And then there’s you and me weighing the difference
in another conversation about conversation.

What’s left for us?
Grocery, take out, or reservation.
Lead the horse to water
and then shoot it.
Keep it moving

Lucas Restivo is a writer from Massachusetts who performs in the independent corporation Intac. He can be found online at @LouieLibrary. He doesn’t believe art has, or should have, financial value, and you, the taxpayer, should support his material needs. He’s open to representation.