By Megan Maloof
Your oven has been on all day,
Scarlet embers from your cigarette fall into the recycling bin
The curling iron is curling the plastic of your countertops-
Whatever it is,
Your house is on fire.
Family photos and garbage burn the same way.
Faces peak from between curtains to look down on you-
Vultures for gossip.
The more active neighbors
Are standing in the middle of the road,
Bathrobes unfurl in the wind,
Like depressed Supermen.
They’re taking videos,
“For insurance,” they nod.
“You can thank me later.”
As they look and stare at your mistakes,
They ask you how it could’ve happened,
Not out of concern,
But so they don’t make the same slip-up.
The firetrucks and the neighbors scream at you
In a harmonious chorus:
“Thank God it wasn’t me.”
Megan Maloof is a 22 year old senior in the American Studies Department at the College of Coastal Georgia. She will be graduating December 15, 2017 with a focus on Cultural Studies and Communication. After college, she plans to move to Atlanta to pursue her love of street poetry and spoken word. She would like to thank the good friends and the bad boyfriends for the excellent writing material.
If you have an affiliation for poetry that is “Somewhere between Whitman and Laffy Taffy Riddles” about cigarettes and women, follow her new instagram project: @Bitch_Poet.