It's Good to Be Alive by Justin Karcher

It's Good to Be Alive

Nowadays I spend my nights
Drinking Atlantics of French press coffee
While playing checkers with lemon macarons 
Just so my sweet tooth can exclaim, "King me!"

It's good to be king like Mel Brooks says in that movie about history
I'm glad I'm not ancient history 
It's good to be alive 

Nowadays I spend my nights eating the laughs of all my friends
While we're having dinner at a French restaurant across the street
From the Hyatt in Downtown Buffalo
Where Main Street still has a long way to go

Where this one night in June
A group of twenty-somethings walked by us dressed like Bavarian yodelers
And they were acting like assholes
So Rich called them Nazis and we all giggled 

I wish some things were ancient history

That night a doctor opened fire in a Bronx hospital and one woman died

But it's tough thinking about death
When Melissa's building marionettes out of dirty silverware
And talking about how beautiful the green hills of Scotland are

Because sometimes the shine in your life gets a little dirty
So you gotta clean it off, make sure it's sharp like a heroic sword
So you can go and save the world
Make sure the quest you're on is a good and honest one
Make sure you're always plucking the strings of a guitar that nobody else can see

Music makes marionettes outta all of us 

That night President Trump had a wet dream about killing Obamacare
And his little sperm swam through the holes in his confederate pajamas
And then through the holes in his gold bedsheets
And then through White House windows
Into the poorest neighborhoods of America
Where they tried building plantations inside the empty purses
Of strong, single mothers
And inside the cluttered cribs of babies
Who'll never grow up to be haunted by their mistakes 
But it's tough thinking about death
When Carly's pouring me coffee
And I'm staring at her tattoos 

Sometimes her ink pulls my strings like I'm a marionette
And I'm okay with that
Because it's all music 

That night we talked about chasing UFOs in Martin Luther King Jr. Park
Being abducted by the power of language 
The language of belief 

The truth is out there 

Anyway it's tough thinking about death
How living a lie will smog up your sweet tooth
So you trip over your bitterness and break into a million little pieces
Yea, it's tough thinking like that
Especially when Melinda's talking about the circus
How there's this acrobat living inside each and every one of us
And when we believe that we're all in this shit together
Those acrobats bust loose outta us
And we flex our muscles in the moonlight
And declare that we are unbreakable
And beautiful
And will always survive 

And then there's me
And all my friends
And a love so strong
That it transforms rusty nails
Into lemon macarons

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Bio: Justin Karcher is the author of Tailgating at the Gates of Hell from Ghost City Press, http://ghostcitypress.tumblr.com/gcp003, the chapbook When Severed Ears Sing You Songs from CWP Collective Press, https://www.cwp-press.com/#/when-severed-ears-sing-you-songs/ and the micro-chapbook Just Because You've Been Hospitalized for Depression Doesn't Mean You're Kanye West from Ghost City Press, https://gumroad.com/l/karcher2017, as part of their 2017 summer micro-chapbook series. His recent work has appeared in Foundlings, Cease,Cows, Thought Catalog, varsity goth, Occulum and more. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Ghost City Review. His one act play When Blizzard Babies Turn to Stone premiered in February at Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, NY. He tweets @Justin_Karcher.

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