I hit the lottery on my birthday.
Two-dollar ticket
four-dollar payout.
I laughed.
I finally had the upper hand
on the devil.
It wasn’t until that billion-dollar jackpot came around.
I was freshly twenty
despite feeling broken in.
Craving more,
my mother sent me into the convenience store—
taxed lung cancer,
canned heart failure,
shiny, money-wasting cards
you have to scratch with raw fingernails—
and I found myself in a line,
listening to stories of what people are gonna do with it.
I used to do that.
I was six years old
my parents fantasizing about fortune,
so we could all have a little more convenience
a little more privacy.
If we could be a little more fortunate.
I bought the tickets my mom wanted
and something for me too;
A two-dollar scratch off—
A fantasy that I could beat the devil
who hypnotized those I love—
My stubby nails screamed
as latex ink compounded underneath them
that would not come off for a few washes.
There it was: nothing.
I’d lost my leg-up
and down to my knees I fell.
Held in a chokehold of dreams,
I thought I could beat him once more.
To thumb pennies into his eyes,
break glass,
burst eardrums
with the shrill of my victory.
This will be the last time I meet him
I dare not break our tie, whatever the odds.