About the Author Autumn Collins attended The Ohio State University for four and a half years (including those infernal summer quarters) and emerged with a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Women's Studies. She then landed a job, relevant to her degree, at McGraw-Hill Publishing, in the Middle School Science division, and has been correcting the grammar of interesting sentences about plate tectonics and supernovas for just over a year. Some of her work can be seen in such literary and online magazines as Plain Ink, Sniffy Linings, Comrades, The Absinthe Literary Review, the printed anthology Letters From the Soul, and the Sniffy 3 printed journal from the Sniffy Linings e-Press.

It’s past the hour
As we passed another,
Glistening with hallucinogenic sweat
That is no more real than what I know of this affair.
The bar stools are hot and dark like the evening
While words echo through empty wine glasses
And I almost let that sound
Drown out the thumping of violence
That started in my chest
But has now come to nest
In the lines around my mouth.
Leaving the bar their hands want to touch
But I am too close behind.
Our steps shine
And break the reflections
Of bar lights and flashes on hoop earrings
As the wet pavement,
Glossed by a sudden shower,
Tells me everything I need to know.