Practicing for a Party

Everyone in the world wants to sound like a poet

I think

I just want to sound like everyone else – in the world 

Telling jokes – has always been trying

For me

Because I laugh, preemptively, to prepare for how the laughter might sound

Alone, I practice, I brace myself for the rare occurrence 

That I

Could be witty enough to pull laughter from anyone 

Anyone in the world I wanted

To be 

Ready for anyone in the world to laugh at me

I must whet the throats of friends

Blurting 

Out a demonstration of how they should react to me

My laughter is sweet and sour lemonade, poured down the wrong pipe

We all choke

And I can’t pronounce the punchline

Gabriel Lukas Quinn (he/him) is a gay writer and English student from Portland, Oregon. Quinn authors short speculative fictions, psychological thrills, and poetry demystifying mental health. If you can’t find Quinn hiding in the sci-fi section at the library, he’s probably at the gym or fighting off a Beholder (in D&D, hopefully). Quinn has been featured in publications such as A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Bindweed Magazine, Door is a Jar Literary Journal, Pathos Literary Magazine, Perceptions Literary Magazine,  and The Sucarnochee Review.