***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.
High Horse 