Bio
DS Maolalai has been nominated for Best of the Web and twice for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019)
Trigger Warning
A kitchen with no cabinet doors.
the thing is, you stumble
through the kitchen in a daze,
whirling like a dancer
who’s forgotten half their steps.
this teenage stuff,
this drunkenness, brung only
low by time and in
its ever forward
motion. now, when I pass out
on a party-soaking sofa
my friends don’t murmur anything
about how very hard
I go. and waking up
to knuckled splinters,
and a kitchen with no
intact cabinets. and perhaps I could do
this teenage stuff forever
but my friends
all want to do other things. Jack’s
just bought a house – so has Celene
with Thomas, and Aaron’s married
waiting for a kid.
mixing port wine with coca cola,
mixing ginger ale with beer.
walking home, yelling
without companions. when the cops pull by
it’s not to check my age.