J.B. Stone
J.B. Stone (he/they) is a Neurodivergent/Autistic teaching artist, spoken word poet, writer, amateur playwright, critic, steven universe cosplayer, wannabe wicca, nerdcore punk from Brooklyn, NY now residing in Buffalo, NY. They serve as Founding EIC at Variety Pack and read flash fiction for Split Lip Magazine. J.B.’s reviews, fiction, and poetry can be found at Rain Taxi, Chicago Review of Books, The Buffalo News, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Citron Review, Hawaii Pacific Review, Peach Mag, among other spaces. You can find more of his work at jb-stone.com and can follow all of the chaos at Twitter/Xitter @JB_StoneTruth and on IG @benjamin.jared.



RE: Jack's Blues                   
                                        after Robert Creeley

I’ve rolled up enough joints to fill up
the room of a Wu-Tang Clan Concert,
smog the canopies of a thousand forests,
yet there’s more to healing than substance, 
more to flooding than the life raft. 
No one says staying afloat is all they wish 
if they haven’t first embraced drowning.
No one says they’re fine 
without saying they’re not 
a thousand times to themselves.

I’ve rolled myself out of bed, slow-motion 
kinetics for a life cycle spent self-loathing, 
& you ask why I might roll the same way
for a five-alarm fire? 
I’ve gone nights where I don’t know
what republic I’ll awake in next, 
if the rent will rise again soon, 
or how many calls the loan office makes 
to smother me in demands. 

I’ve found peace in presence, 
but options for a better future decay, 
like the apparatus of a skyline 
that’s more chimney than garden, 
I don’t want to say I’ve fallen out of love 
with the city where your ghost lingers, 
but if I had to, I’d say, it’s complicated.

I’ve rolled with many punches, 
but I’m not a boxer. I’m not a tumbleweed. 
I can’t carry a brain-bleed, and 
I can’t roam silent through wastelands. 
I chance the world 
for all its burning and grinding, 
news of warfare and slaughter, 
will find more nights made for sleep, 
not for candlelight vigils. 
I’ve rolled my eyes enough. 
I want to know my hope
won’t become a distant memory.
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