Melanie Browne

Melanie Browne has appeared in various e-zines and journals including Word Riot, Commonline, Madswirl, Cause & Effect, and Pank-online. She has work forthcoming in Yellow Mama,Word Riot, Houston Literary Review, and Bicycle Review. She is a co-editor at Leaf Garden Press. Her first chapbook, Heaven is a Giant Pawn Shop, is available at Erbacce Press. She lives in Texas.

Melanie Browne's Website & Chapbook: melspoemsandsuch.blogspot.com

                                                                         www.erbacce-press.com/melanie-browne

To the writers who smoke

To the writers who smoke
how do you hold your hands?
And then it's the simultaneous
Crack of the lighter and the
snap of your thumb

or do you use matches?

when you have neither
maybe you rub
two sticks
together

To the writers who smoke
I find you a bit fascinating 

That's a spicy meatball (things that fizz)

I always thought the
Aztecs were kind of sexy

They were really into
Body piercings
and cutting
before those things
were really cool

I read somewhere that
They invented our
Modern day
Alka Seltzer

It happened
During a sacrifice
To
Ometotchtli

Which makes sense
Because he was the
God of drunkenness

After that
He
Was known
As
The
Great

no-tecuh-tzin

POPin POPin
Fizztl Fizztl

Decoy

The owl decoy
Protecting the
garbage outside
The Burger King
Drive-thru
fooled us both

then you were
reminding me
about our
first apartment

how the
Raccoons
would dig through the trash

remembering
how their eyes would glow
in the glare of the headlights
of our car

giving us blank stares
a cold black night

leaving the parking lot,
My eyes
Follow
The
decoy

his head never turns

Shopping for the Apocalypse

Over Thanksgiving
I notice my parents
have a humongous
bottle of shampoo

it is so humongous
in fact it slips from my
hands while
taking a shower
and bashes in the big
toe on my right foot.

they have been shopping
at the warehouse
clubs again

and its a good
thing I suppose

because when the
apocalypse comes
everyone will have clean,
luxurious
and fresh-smelling hair

After Mixing Nyquil with Dramamine

After mixing Nyquil with Dramamine,

she realized

There was no boat

She looked down

At the

sandals dirty with road grime

and thought

“those are my feet”

And she realized she was 

Carrying a large, filthy dog

And that she was laughing

Inappropriately

Her legs 

Felt like sea legs anyway