Audrey Menner

Selected Poems

Fruit Punch

Let’s go to the bar. Let’s get buzzed. Let’s smoke a couple lucky strikes outside to set the mood. Let’s get craaaaazy! Let’s make out in one of the bathroom stalls with no toilet paper and phone numbers written on the walls. I know I don’t swing that way but let’s do it any way. Buy me another round of tequila shots and I won’t remember anyways. Have you ever seen a fruit punch before? I throw fists like I throw up, indiscriminately and messily. I’ll miss the target every time but if I’m doing it, it’s because I had a damn good time. Meaning I shouldn’t have had that last round. And this should probably be my last round. How about we go ‘round to that dive by my apartment with all the veterans who are calling me slurs behind their cheap beers? Let’s get some cheap beers and share war stories, comrade! Tell me about your time in the coast guard and I’ll tell you about my promiscuous summer on the east coast. We’ll throw darts and I’ll pretend like it’s an accident when I hit you in the carotid. I’ll tell you it’s an accident while I call the ambulance, but you and I both know they won’t get here in time ‘cause we can’t even hear the sirens yet and it’s a craaaaazy Friday night on the west side. The blood’s leaving you too fast thanks to the liquor and none of the vets in here were medics, they were all combat, so they’ll just laugh while your severed artery slips between my thumb and forefinger and then they’ll look me up and down and tell me I’ve got good aim for a dy—