Ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk the grocery cart’s wheel formerly locked by an invisible fence that keeps Those People from stealing it away to their bus stops and apartment complexes dragged across the pavement grinding flat spots like brake-dragged train wheels unheeded by the exhausted railroaders hauling loads of coal down from the mountains to roll ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk along the backwater track into the switchyard and now the middle-aged father on his suburban milk run finds himself transported back into a long-forgotten teenage despair watching those steel wheels pizza-cutter their tonnage along steel tracks and wondering how long it would hurt.
Jay Parr (he/they) doesn't experience suicidal ideation anymore. He lives with his partner and child in North Carolina, where he's a lecturer at UNCG. jayparr.wordpress.com