to the birthday girls

We are sixteen             & God is great              We are celebrating

   our birthday     I was born the year before you only          365 days without you

  making a list       of all the stupid young adult cliches     We are hanging

from rooftops stealing           from chain supermarkets         smoking weed

                in your parents' basement                    Alex you remember your grandmother

catching us           Remember how she forced us to church the next morning

Remember the pastor        holding our heads             underwater for too long Remember

    that bursting from below me gasping           for air while the church applauded

              our drowning        That night we listened to Rilo Kiley & crashed

into someone's mailbox       Ever wonder        what would've happened

    if we got caught             watering down your parent's liquor cabinet Do you remember

how you got into that gun                safe     How did it feel to hold life

     so close to you the smell         of alcohol & gunpowder merging Do you remember me

              crying for you       to put it away Do you          remember drinking so much

     it felt like drowning             You ever think how that was kinda like our baptism

EK Krone is a jailhouse preacher’s daughter. An MFA candidate at the University of Arkansas and a trans southerner, she can be found in HAD, wildness, Arkana, or on ekkrone.com.