top of page

billboard ads (76 bpm)

Margaret Wang

last year, i shouted from pot-holed highways

took the dust storms on my shoulders, yeah, bopped along to roadtrip lofi

scoffed in static at deserted rest stops, bent monotony through gas-station windows


trailer parks—young boys and stray puppies clenched in the maw; came up to me 

falsifying lips stained with dollar-store lemonade

made me a new branding, torn sneakers restrung by their momma’s hands


and i’m a disconnected wire, stoppered jazz fuzzing up to lonesome twilight, oh,

take me home on country roads, but i’m a sort of city girl in a lucid 

kind of dream-state, and really, who’ll bother?


pass the fields of corn and splintered coffee shop; it’s sun-bleached anyways and 

going out of business, can’t help but stop for a shot of

caffeine ‘cause it seems like i just sleep through these days


tomorrow always dawns sardonic—too rich, sane boys and their fathers; still think 

that hiding behind lacquered stop signs will protect you? let’s fire off a few rounds, 

bulls-eye shots, laugh it off ‘fore they writhe back up with new obscenities


who’s the outlaw now? left the accomplice corpse-mouthed in a cell

sated on back-wheel dust tonight, canyon treads tattooing up my devil’s tongue

pass a single landmark, can’t stop to jot it down


‘cause who gives a damn about these people anymore, yeah they’re 

left behind in billboard shadows, just another mile to pass

must be mad, but who cares (noon flashes hundred-per-hour on the dash)

About the Author

Margaret Wang is a high school student living in Arizona. She can often be found spacing out, having multiple identity crises, contemplating the universe, or engaging in similarly productive activities.

<< back   issue 01   next >>

bottom of page