Prelude to a Stubbed Toe
by Joseph A. W. Quintela

Rioting. You kick the curb. A futile gesture. It feels good. Like August love. Hot. Sultry. Dying. A star flinging layers before collapse. Anything to buzz. Anything to escape the lurking void. Playing soul Jenga. The Hopi have but two tenses. One that exists. One that hasn’t yet. Yesterday and today exist. But tomorrow hasn’t. You? You’ve only one. Tomorrow. Which you can’t reach. That’s why you kick. Mute. Rioting.

 

JOSEPH QUINTELA is a New York City writer and poet with a particular concern for the interaction between literature and technology. His Twitter-based poetry project (www.in140characters.com) explores the potential for form provided by adhering to the strict constraint of 140 characters. He writes in the company of his two loyal chihuahuas, who have little in the way of literary taste, and yet by whose opinion he exclusively abides.

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