today’s salad
spinach
boiled potatoes
chickpeas
crumbled wheat gluten
garlic
oregano
rosemary
olive oil
lemon juice
yesterday’s salad
spinach
arugula
broccoli
cucumber
bananas
a green apple
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
honey
tomorrow’s salad
spinach
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today i practiced my serious voice
read serious poetry out loud to myself
focus on volume, intonation, clarity
deep voice
when they hear my fag-mumble
they can gage my weakness
but i will trick them
faites comme les autres or w/e
i will alter my voice
so i can operate freely in space
as a valid person with other valid people
except
this is hypothetical
and unlikely
and beyond my capability
and doesn’t matter because
my skin is so yellow and red
and i am the ugliest thing
this morning i woke up
looked in the mirror
thought ‘i look terrible’
and then did everything
and went to bed with my hands over my face
when i’m atactic i feel like i’m further up-shore
from a lake of slime
that was drawn from my pores
and dammed up
before anything solid and good could worm in
i feel disgusting when i use two
hot chocolate packets in one mug
i want my pelvis to fold into itself
hips touching and ribs laced
my face clicks into the hollow of my gut
limbs come off, wrapped and atticked
nothing i could say could bring the desired results
of elusive social interaction
i’m invalid
when i was 11 i told my only friend that i wanted to cut my tongue out
so it wouldn’t be an issue
i could move on
‘you look like john lennon doesn’t he look like john lennon,’
says the old man
i pick up the trash that is behind the bushes
the homeless cannot reach behind bushes
for lack of a home and experience with household things
like bushes
I UNDERSTAND
‘good job now put it right in here’
the old man shakes a plastic bag at me
the old man does a little dance with just his shoulders
the old man’s face falls off so i pick it up
so i hand it to him
so he pulls the loose sides around the back of his head
and clips it with a metal thing, like so
I SMELL LIKE TRASH
‘so where are the girls,’ asks a man with half his face bruised purple
‘they’re in the bathrooms,’ says the old man
‘them lesbians
what they doing
god says NO’
‘to each his own,’ says the bruised man
TO EACH HIS OWN
you will grab me my decanter
and i will pour you a warm glass of pus
it comes from my cats
they are perfectly aged and covered in abscesses
she is bloated with a gestational indignation
hum her the spectre of a boyfriend
pull the anticrucifix from her chest slowly
emo witches don’t rot
they shatter
my voice is soft and cracked but you have to listen
leave fast at dawn
sidestep conversation
keep your insides dry
lie to conserve friendship
rub ash over wet spots
fill a bucket with the guts you have
call out to the morose
ignore the capricious
sow with ancient bulbs
fertilize with a torn lexicon
dig until you hit hell’s brook
spit back what you drink
pull any daring face close
apologize for the clawed skin
dress in knits and tin
paint holes over doors
build gates with sound and odor
place all plastics in a circle
form easy goals with what you have
sob until the concrete is soft
when i become a ghost
i will make my eye holes big enough
for you to throw snacks in
look
i am going to try to communicate this
entirely through facial expression
i have elastic bands and hooks to aid me
i have a sharpie to accentuate
i have a thin knife to edit
no stop
i am the one who will be making the faces here
i get headaches
right now i have a new type of headache
i should write down some visual references
for my migraine scrapbook
i am thinking
‘hot red bubbles’
‘wet strips of burlap’
‘hair gel in my mouth’
‘pineapple in microwave’
‘beakless parakeet scream’
‘cutting an egg with scissors’
‘king koopa gives birth to eight’
‘the grooves in celery, but giant’
‘smoking melted mechanical pencil’
‘pressing my face into tile flooring pulling at the back of my hair whimpering please’
my adopted brother is a quivering weave of interlocked tentacles
his mother was a sea witch
who copulated with the devil’s hypercube
in sailor’s lore, ‘the ouroborous octeract’
my mom crochets him colorful wool baggies
with little handles so we can carry him to school
my sister lets him ride in the basket on her bike
he snatches up hummingbirds in his slick folds
sometimes my dad will sit with him and talk about being in the navy
even though my adopted brother can only gurgle softly back
every christmas my dad puts my adopted brother in a santa stocking
and hides it
and drinks in the garage
and laughs into his hands
until one of us hears the tiny wet screams
even though my adopted brother is three centuries old
he will always be my little adopted brother
two people stand back to back at a beach
the younger person pulls on a hoodie
the older person shakes the sand out of a pair of jeans and puts them on
the younger person feels cold
the younger person looks at a house on a hill far away
the younger person says
“do you live here all year round?”
the older person says
“yeah. i love it.”
the younger person says
“it reminds me of dracula.”
drunk in the grocery store
when a big lady steps away to pick a doritos flavor
i build a tiny pyramid of cans of cream of mushroom in front of her cart
i sit on a throne of cantaloupe
