On a bad night you sleep here, in this one of many unfinished vacation homes in this unfinished vacation town in coastal Sonora, Mexico. Those ass-chafing bicycle nights, those hair-cursing soaking nights pounding a dusty concrete slab as your bones pinch your flesh against it. Through sweat that forces your eyes closed but keeps you awake, all you can do is imagine relief. Relief was maybe a few weeks ago, with a name like Samantha or Tabitha. You chide yourself for forgetting her name. You're getting sloppy, like you used to be. Samantha or Tabitha was friends with Sara, whom you sold dog shit weed to in the alley of a night club. Maybe you were the first person they approached, or maybe they didn't even approach you at all, but you tell them a story of why they would have had a hard time finding someone. A passionately delivered narrative catered perfectly to the white American drug purchaser's desperate reach for a connection to struggle, something about the American war on drugs and roving packs of corrupt Federales. You are a brave, principled rebel who carries the best product. You're like Whole Foods and Pancho Villa at once. This both allows you to charge an obscene mark-up and ingratiates you to their group. Samantha or Tabitha seemed skeptical, which meant that you get to spend extra time talking to her, selling her on your story, and on you. You give them their baggie, but smoke them up with your "private stash" before they go back in. This is when you ask Samantha or Tabitha about her tattoo, just before the bowl is kicked. In this familiar tactic, the momentum of conversation will draw you into the club with them, but tonight you are uncertain, so you mention the "secret after-parties". Maybe there are a few guys in the group, so you must get them to trust you and admire your street cred, even busying themselves trying to impress you. You must get them too wasted to make decisions, but not wasted enough to require a ride back to wherever they are staying. You think one of them may go alpha on you and resent your superior local wisdom, so you make jokes about petty machismo to start an undercurrent of bias against his objections to having a drug dealer as a tour guide. Somewhere in the midst of all this your hand ends up on Samantha or Tabitha's knee for a few uncertain moments, unfolding a rumor of natural tenderness and hesitation to contrast your jagged directness in all other matters.
The group decides against after-parties and invites you back to their beachfront rental, which is perfect because there are no after-parties you know of. You have three alarms on your otherwise broken flip-phone set to go off at 2:25, 2:27, and 2:37AM to simulate a text conversation with a friend saying the party may be busted, to wait a few minutes (to build tension), then officially call it off. You shut off your phone and pour everyone shots as they raid their fridge to nearly construct tacos from remnants of poorly boiled rice, limes, and shredded cheese, but end up eating the component elements.
Someone's beachy playlist in the background, you hold court in the living room as everyone leaves for bed or to gaze at stars until Samantha or Tabitha is the only one left listening. Bloated on rice and Tecate, she tries to speak but you move closer to her and she trails off into thought, returning with a noncommittal weed solicitation. You lead one another to her room and crack the window, but only a little bit because you know what happens next. Her new glass bowl is passed back and forth on the edge of the bed until it is spent. After blowing the char into a bag, you dig through your musty backpack to refill, leaning forward heavily as she lies back and stares at the ceiling for a few moments. Just before you reemerge, you feel her big toe tracing the waistband of your boxers. Thoroughly high, you climb her leg up to her face and begin the ritual.
Now that you've ascended to the rank of "Mexico fling", you must earn your stay for the weekend. Most trips are at least 3 days, and that's 3 days with air conditioning and showers and free food. She may be affectionate towards you and may even make you feel like you're not a public service, but you don't dare think that. Under no circumstances do you stop fucking her until she is asleep, and you wake up ready if she wants it. You know that without weed and good dick, you sleep on concrete. Nothing can go wrong. Your every dollar is spend on weed, condoms, and a steady diet of aphrodisiacs to ensure remarkable virility. Marine bivalves and avocados for every meal, and an unending bag of pumpkin seeds, which also works as a charming personal affectation.
You've been out in the sun for years so your race is ambiguous, and the accent you once faked now feels the most natural. On the rare occasion people may ask of your past, you know the sort of tales tourists want to hear and never disappoint. Your real name is never given, familiarity is aggressively dissuaded. Regardless of the situation, you are the first to leave.
Tonight was a bad night; you left the club alone. Maybe you were too direct. Maybe they could hear the clockwork of your motivation, or maybe they were actually just tired, and maybe you really would see them at the same place tomorrow night. You consider that prospect, leaning against the wall in silence next to the women's room entrance with with an empty bottle in your hand for an hour or two. Your other hand is in your pocket, with your thumb fondling several peso notes, a lighter with the safety band removed, and a condom you poked full of holes, as you've done with every condom you've used since you became a permanent nonresident.
You brandish peso notes and toss them on the bar on your way out, then pedal maybe 5 or 6 scarcely defined blocks until you pick a shadowless alley to wait for the sound of chains and effort. You busy your mind with fantasies, maybe of Samantha or Tabitha and exaggerated memories of the postcoital reverie you permitted. You rein in your thoughts as a few restaurant employees pass on their way home. The sea breeze is against you as you briskly walk from the alley directly into the path of a lone cyclist, dress shirt billowing, rapidly approaching from the clubs. The moment you collide and he realizes what is happening, he starts trying to put words together. You catch him in your arms. In one graceful gesture, you place them on the ground and push a rusty file through their right eye deep into the skull and, in a gentle breaking whisper, slowly sing the following verse in a tune almost recognized as you crank the file in widening circles:
When all vows are one
And questions end
What we leave undone
Will relief send
Let loose the pure
Light within you to mend
Knowing nothing more
Time to shut the door
By the final line all motion has subsided. You hoist him over your shoulder and carry him to the nearby beach, drop your backpack at the shore and fully clothed walk them through the calm water, which is waist-high for nearly a quarter mile and warmer than the air. You swear in harsh bursts because you forgot to leave your phone in your backpack and it keeps vibrating with reminders of the alarms you set, and you are sweating and cramping and your whole body itches. The moon unceremoniously sinks below the horizon like a match tossed into the ocean and you notice bioluminescent microbes give a lingering flash as you disturb them with the arm dangling in front of you. When you are finally well over your head, you tie the body to a rock so it is at least 6 feet underwater at low tide. Leaving your old bike for a new thief, you walk to their bike, pants causing painful blisters on your thighs. You ride to the outskirts of town, scarcely distinguishable from the last outskirts, cruising straight into the entry of the concrete skeleton of a luxury home abortion and lie down next to your bike in a corner.
As you caught your breath while seeking the least painful position, you were wondering who I am and why I am here with you. The night is long and you want to be alone, but this is where I will stay, and there will probably be others. I wanted to express my appreciation before. Now I get my chance.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Most Unappealing Conversations in History, Part 7: The Grand Inquisitor & Kelly in Customer Service
Kelly: Thank you for calling Quiz Giant, the Internet's premier FREE quiz generator: guaranteed to go viral or we give you your free back! My name is Kelly, how can I help you create your custom quiz?
K: An excellent choice! You are tapping people's natural desire to have the visible spectrum be about them. Could you please maybe give me a sample answer? Describe, for example, a "blue" person?
TGI: Well good! I'm not exactly being subtle about it. I was wondering, if I could come up with a rate at which people are dying due to starvation, diseases, armed conflict, etc, could the answer page list how many people died while they were taking the quiz?
TGI: I'm going to allow silence to communicate the obvious irony of that statement, starting: now.
K: Fair enough. Hey, how many people do you think died under despotic regimes during this conversation?
TGI: Don't try to pull a reversal on me, I'm using satire draw attention to-
K: No you're not, you're just another writer trying to look cool and above something. Plenty of sexy activists and others in existentially favored positions take our quizzes. You just resent people having fun in ways you don't agree with, and you would rather feel superior to them instead of trying to relate. How many hours have you spent on our website trying to design this quiz?
TGI: I don't-
K: That was actually a filler question to kill time while tabbing over to a report that would tell me. It says here that you've been on our site for 4 hours. Do you know how many reasons you could have found to like people in that time?
TGI: I just think everyone spends too much time crafting fake personalities on the Internet.
K: That's probably because they think the outside world is full of judgy assholes like you! Writers like you shape the world with your perspective, and your cannibalistic usage of meta is ruining everything! Meta is the most obvious shortcut to acting like you're better than something, which is probably why most people become writers anyway
TGI: Don't do that!
K: Don't do what?
TGI: Writer ego baiting. It's possibly the worst part of being a writer, really. Writer culture is fraught with self-deprecation, which is basically your bridge toll to talk about yourself and have people pretend to still like you afterwards.
K: What has that to do with ego baiting?
TGI: As writers analyze one another and themselves, as they are wont to do, these bridge tolls become too obvious, and thus the toll goes up until all that's left is picking on the egos of writers. So we bludgeon ourselves and each other with quotes like "kill your darlings" or pretty much everything Ernest Hemingway ever said, misappropriating every wise saying we can find to apply to every sentence we enjoy.
K: I hate to break it to you, but it looks like you just proved my point.
TGI: No I didn't!
K: Yep. You're saying writers use more meta to discreetly seem better than each other. You even make out of context wise sayings about yourselves, how egotistical is that? All justified through meta.
TGI: Oh no! Where can we hide from the meta?
K: I don't think there is any way to hide from it. How can we recover when we're the disease?
TGI: My God you're right!
K: I didn't know you were Christian.
TGI: I didn't say I was Christian. Actually I-
K: Well yeah, but you used a capital 'G' in- OH NO!
TGI: It's getting worse!
K: I think we deserve to die. It is the only way to atone.
TGI: You're right, it doesn't matter, because we are just Ian talking to himself.
The Grand Inquisitor: Hi Kelly! I'm sorry you have to deliver such a long greeting. Anyway, I am looking to make a "Which color are you?" quiz.
K: An excellent choice! You are tapping people's natural desire to have the visible spectrum be about them. Could you please maybe give me a sample answer? Describe, for example, a "blue" person?
TGI: "Blue is very intuitive and creative. They are more concerned with the ethereal and that is OK! They are most likely an artist, or if not they definitely find subtle ways to use their intuition and creativity to do their job. Romantically, blues are most compatible with green or yellow, and should stay away from maroon because maroon's need for stability and accountability will be a frequent point of contention."
K: That is very nice! The answers will be perfect tie-ins for ads for online schools and dating websites. Now could you please give me an example of a question?
TGI: "What do you think most reflects the current living situation in Haiti?
A) Probably on the road to recovery, since like, Beck held that benefit concert?
B) Everybody has their own journey, but I'm sure all the people there are doing their best.
C) Rubble and cholera, but nobody is paying any attention, they should try the paleo diet.
D) I don't know! I'm awful! Does feeling awful and apologizing for my awfulness then continuing to do exactly what I was doing before help?"
A) Probably on the road to recovery, since like, Beck held that benefit concert?
B) Everybody has their own journey, but I'm sure all the people there are doing their best.
C) Rubble and cholera, but nobody is paying any attention, they should try the paleo diet.
D) I don't know! I'm awful! Does feeling awful and apologizing for my awfulness then continuing to do exactly what I was doing before help?"
K: Hey now, I see what you're trying to do here…
TGI: Well good! I'm not exactly being subtle about it. I was wondering, if I could come up with a rate at which people are dying due to starvation, diseases, armed conflict, etc, could the answer page list how many people died while they were taking the quiz?
K: We do not want to make a quiz that insults the person taking it.
TGI: I'm going to allow silence to communicate the obvious irony of that statement, starting: now.
K: Fair enough. Hey, how many people do you think died under despotic regimes during this conversation?
TGI: Don't try to pull a reversal on me, I'm using satire draw attention to-
K: No you're not, you're just another writer trying to look cool and above something. Plenty of sexy activists and others in existentially favored positions take our quizzes. You just resent people having fun in ways you don't agree with, and you would rather feel superior to them instead of trying to relate. How many hours have you spent on our website trying to design this quiz?
TGI: I don't-
K: That was actually a filler question to kill time while tabbing over to a report that would tell me. It says here that you've been on our site for 4 hours. Do you know how many reasons you could have found to like people in that time?
TGI: I just think everyone spends too much time crafting fake personalities on the Internet.
K: That's probably because they think the outside world is full of judgy assholes like you! Writers like you shape the world with your perspective, and your cannibalistic usage of meta is ruining everything! Meta is the most obvious shortcut to acting like you're better than something, which is probably why most people become writers anyway
TGI: Don't do that!
K: Don't do what?
TGI: Writer ego baiting. It's possibly the worst part of being a writer, really. Writer culture is fraught with self-deprecation, which is basically your bridge toll to talk about yourself and have people pretend to still like you afterwards.
K: What has that to do with ego baiting?
TGI: As writers analyze one another and themselves, as they are wont to do, these bridge tolls become too obvious, and thus the toll goes up until all that's left is picking on the egos of writers. So we bludgeon ourselves and each other with quotes like "kill your darlings" or pretty much everything Ernest Hemingway ever said, misappropriating every wise saying we can find to apply to every sentence we enjoy.
K: I hate to break it to you, but it looks like you just proved my point.
TGI: No I didn't!
K: Yep. You're saying writers use more meta to discreetly seem better than each other. You even make out of context wise sayings about yourselves, how egotistical is that? All justified through meta.
TGI: Oh no! Where can we hide from the meta?
K: I don't think there is any way to hide from it. How can we recover when we're the disease?
TGI: My God you're right!
K: I didn't know you were Christian.
TGI: I didn't say I was Christian. Actually I-
K: Well yeah, but you used a capital 'G' in- OH NO!
TGI: It's getting worse!
K: I think we deserve to die. It is the only way to atone.
TGI: You're right, it doesn't matter, because we are just Ian talking to himself.
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Broken Bread
Dear You,
I appreciate your inquiry and will do my best to answer your questions. As a serving of bread, my life cycle is fairly predictable. Today is a good example. Well, everyday is an equally good example, but right now it is today. There is only today. My initial debut from the oven features 30 minutes of effervescent warmth that cannot be replenished, only imitated through reheating. Today's 30 minutes lapsed hours ago under the cover of a linen cloth in a large, crowded basket as I listened to the kitchen staff talk about sex when there were no members of the opposite sex around. Eventually I am divided into smaller baskets which are carted each off with a cheap side salad. I must be at a convention, not sure what country. I do not understand language, only meaning. I hear discussion of basic mass-produced medical implements (syringes, scalpels, etc), often growing very nuanced to the level of individual manufacturing cost and the grade of steel used. Insurance trade show? No, these details are far too mundane for even that. That there are people requires so many tiny concerns, one would have to be mentally ill to have any direct passion for most of them.
After the warmth fades, I have a couple hours of a clearly defined layered texture of crispness, softness, and moisture, and today I am squandering it on a sterilized plate listening to people talk about other food. I'm glad my existence is too short for jealousy. Also, I am glad I don't want to have sex. Maybe those two are related? But seriously, if you've ever had to sit silently and observe every exchanged word between people on a date, you'd know what I mean. The amount of human tedium I am forced to know is something you would be jealous of; o how i seek avenues to barter it away to you.
After a curious bite, I am left on a plate with undesirable vegetables. The twilight of my edibility fades into rubbery mediocrity, and my spirit leaves as a hollow, soulless rigidity takes over. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a short life somewhere charming. It seems like the more appealing the location, the stronger the desire for bread.
I hope this helps, but I doubt anything could.
Sincerely,
The Bread
I appreciate your inquiry and will do my best to answer your questions. As a serving of bread, my life cycle is fairly predictable. Today is a good example. Well, everyday is an equally good example, but right now it is today. There is only today. My initial debut from the oven features 30 minutes of effervescent warmth that cannot be replenished, only imitated through reheating. Today's 30 minutes lapsed hours ago under the cover of a linen cloth in a large, crowded basket as I listened to the kitchen staff talk about sex when there were no members of the opposite sex around. Eventually I am divided into smaller baskets which are carted each off with a cheap side salad. I must be at a convention, not sure what country. I do not understand language, only meaning. I hear discussion of basic mass-produced medical implements (syringes, scalpels, etc), often growing very nuanced to the level of individual manufacturing cost and the grade of steel used. Insurance trade show? No, these details are far too mundane for even that. That there are people requires so many tiny concerns, one would have to be mentally ill to have any direct passion for most of them.
After the warmth fades, I have a couple hours of a clearly defined layered texture of crispness, softness, and moisture, and today I am squandering it on a sterilized plate listening to people talk about other food. I'm glad my existence is too short for jealousy. Also, I am glad I don't want to have sex. Maybe those two are related? But seriously, if you've ever had to sit silently and observe every exchanged word between people on a date, you'd know what I mean. The amount of human tedium I am forced to know is something you would be jealous of; o how i seek avenues to barter it away to you.
After a curious bite, I am left on a plate with undesirable vegetables. The twilight of my edibility fades into rubbery mediocrity, and my spirit leaves as a hollow, soulless rigidity takes over. Maybe tomorrow I'll have a short life somewhere charming. It seems like the more appealing the location, the stronger the desire for bread.
I hope this helps, but I doubt anything could.
Sincerely,
The Bread
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Reasons Why Wherever the Fuck You are Right Now Is the Worst Place Ever
I have some bad news, everybody! Looks like you live in/were thinking of moving to the most soul-crushingly awful place in the world. And I should know, I live here! Let me give you the scoop so you don't have to learn the hard way:
There is no culture! Everyone is such a snob because we have that museum district and that world famous opera house. I feel bad for the poor local artists trying to pump blood into the dead dog of this city's arts scene, but not as bad as I feel for the suckers who have to sit through their pathetic attempts at art galleries and live theater. It's like, if you don't have $250, or nothing, to blow on a night out, then you might as well stay in, drink cheap beer and have your mind numbed by reality television!
There are no major landmarks. It's full of major landmarks and they are such tourist traps, covered in trash, and their "keep the park clean" policy is stifling and downright Orwellian in its approach. I feel like if the paper sleeve blows off my straw, I have to chase it or an undercover agent will get me, and when I chase it I trip over rubble because it is so filthy! Uh, no thank you, think I'll just smoke some mids and pass out with my face buried in US Weekly.
Restaurants are so expensive! And they think that a cheap and ubiquitous local street cart food item that gives the city character can make up for this? Hah haaa! I laugh at your overly spiced fatty salty flavorlessly healthy local fare! You want ethnic food? Forget about it! You either have to travel to these sketchy neighborhoods spread throughout the city, find one of the places in a boring strip mall, or go to one of the places in that expensive neighborhood with all the restaurants. Might as well just hang out at home and drink brandy out of a paper bathroom cup and see what the Kardashians are up to.
The sports fans are obnoxious, you don't wanna be out at night when the local team is playing. The city doesn't even have a sports team.
Nobody is from here. It is so insular, it'll be 5 years before anybody even commits to remembering your name if you don't have 3 generations of family living within a 4 block radius.
The geography stinks! You're near the beach, so everybody is such a braindead slacker who smokes too much weed and they are so pretentious because their beachfront property costs more than all of your organs if you were an endangered rhino. The city is amorphously sprawling because its not near a large body of water, and the damned featureless landscape brings in all these obnoxious outdoor sports enthusiasts. How about I just have bowl of oatmeal with percocets crushed in it and catch a rerun of Access Hollywood?
Don't even get me started on the job market! There is no major industry here anymore so everyone just works nondescript corporate gigs. The tech bros are so insufferable with their google glasses, constantly telling everyone about their production company and their affiliation with actors and directors, and they're all obnoxious improv comics! Maybe I'll just have some brownies with Vick's vapor rub baked in and watch football reruns.
The weather is like a… fuckin' boring… serpent of death… rainy… sun… strip malls... g- god dammit! JAHGAK;DFG
Wally Wilbertson is a self-proclaimed yogurt snob and life couch, and his work can be seen on Vice, Huffington Post, Elite Daily, and Fuhhhh. He got his MFA in creative writing at the Snupdy D. Bottlemyre Conservatory. Please hang out with him. He has a MacBook, a Netflix account, and hot and cold running disdain.
 |
| Who cares? |
There is no culture! Everyone is such a snob because we have that museum district and that world famous opera house. I feel bad for the poor local artists trying to pump blood into the dead dog of this city's arts scene, but not as bad as I feel for the suckers who have to sit through their pathetic attempts at art galleries and live theater. It's like, if you don't have $250, or nothing, to blow on a night out, then you might as well stay in, drink cheap beer and have your mind numbed by reality television!
There are no major landmarks. It's full of major landmarks and they are such tourist traps, covered in trash, and their "keep the park clean" policy is stifling and downright Orwellian in its approach. I feel like if the paper sleeve blows off my straw, I have to chase it or an undercover agent will get me, and when I chase it I trip over rubble because it is so filthy! Uh, no thank you, think I'll just smoke some mids and pass out with my face buried in US Weekly.
Restaurants are so expensive! And they think that a cheap and ubiquitous local street cart food item that gives the city character can make up for this? Hah haaa! I laugh at your overly spiced fatty salty flavorlessly healthy local fare! You want ethnic food? Forget about it! You either have to travel to these sketchy neighborhoods spread throughout the city, find one of the places in a boring strip mall, or go to one of the places in that expensive neighborhood with all the restaurants. Might as well just hang out at home and drink brandy out of a paper bathroom cup and see what the Kardashians are up to.
The sports fans are obnoxious, you don't wanna be out at night when the local team is playing. The city doesn't even have a sports team.
Nobody is from here. It is so insular, it'll be 5 years before anybody even commits to remembering your name if you don't have 3 generations of family living within a 4 block radius.
 |
| Here's one piece of stupid graffiti I found. So original guys. |
The geography stinks! You're near the beach, so everybody is such a braindead slacker who smokes too much weed and they are so pretentious because their beachfront property costs more than all of your organs if you were an endangered rhino. The city is amorphously sprawling because its not near a large body of water, and the damned featureless landscape brings in all these obnoxious outdoor sports enthusiasts. How about I just have bowl of oatmeal with percocets crushed in it and catch a rerun of Access Hollywood?
Don't even get me started on the job market! There is no major industry here anymore so everyone just works nondescript corporate gigs. The tech bros are so insufferable with their google glasses, constantly telling everyone about their production company and their affiliation with actors and directors, and they're all obnoxious improv comics! Maybe I'll just have some brownies with Vick's vapor rub baked in and watch football reruns.
The weather is like a… fuckin' boring… serpent of death… rainy… sun… strip malls... g- god dammit! JAHGAK;DFG
Wally Wilbertson is a self-proclaimed yogurt snob and life couch, and his work can be seen on Vice, Huffington Post, Elite Daily, and Fuhhhh. He got his MFA in creative writing at the Snupdy D. Bottlemyre Conservatory. Please hang out with him. He has a MacBook, a Netflix account, and hot and cold running disdain.
Friday, May 2, 2014
National Poetry Month Day 30: Sorry for my Existence
For the last day of poetry month, I am writing a slam parody about sexism. Cadence and hand gesture as you see fit.
As a woman, I woke up carefully and
Alone
My bed has too many pillows,
no wonder I'm single.
No wonder
Know.
Wonder.
I wander to the mirror
From my own eyes, the male gaze peers back at me
My eyes are daggers that cloud my mind, and don't even recognize me,
I wanna use Occam's Razor as a sweat lodge
Trim this fat from my mind
I wish I weighed less, but someone once told me
"Real women have curves"
I head to the scale to find out what I'm worth
1 for that time I didn't care what people thought of me
3 the number of points in a bowl of granola
4 u, I might starve but
2-day I eat
4 me
Does it count as skinny shaming if I eat bacon in public?
Is my body acceptance making other women fat?
I'd stop at Starbucks, but I don't wanna be a basic bitch
I tell my boyfriend I'm going to yoga
But if I actually go, I'm a manic pixie dream girl
But if I just say I'm going to yoga then don't, I'm a basic bitch
So I stop thinking about yoga
And dump my boyfriend so I can develop my own storyline
Move to Europe,
Live there for 4 years so I wouldn't be just another
basic bitch on her token eurotrip
But I didn't do anything interesting that might
Inspire a depressed male writer
It's been a crazy 4 years, so I
Go to bed and
It's funny, I
Used to say "Hail Mary"s and "Our Father"s as a kid, but
Now my precious nightly prayer session goes something like this:
"Hail Mary, full of spite
Hollow be my existence
Give me this day,
My daily affirmation
And forgive me my made-up trespasses"
But Mary and the Father sleep in separate beds now
And God is just the patriarchy saying
"Stop hitting yourself!"
"Stop hitting yourself!"
"Stop hitting yourself!"
Step off of the know-ledge
As a woman, I woke up carefully and
Alone
My bed has too many pillows,
no wonder I'm single.
No wonder
Know.
Wonder.
I wander to the mirror
From my own eyes, the male gaze peers back at me
My eyes are daggers that cloud my mind, and don't even recognize me,
I wanna use Occam's Razor as a sweat lodge
Trim this fat from my mind
I wish I weighed less, but someone once told me
"Real women have curves"
I head to the scale to find out what I'm worth
1 for that time I didn't care what people thought of me
3 the number of points in a bowl of granola
4 u, I might starve but
2-day I eat
4 me
Does it count as skinny shaming if I eat bacon in public?
Is my body acceptance making other women fat?
I'd stop at Starbucks, but I don't wanna be a basic bitch
I tell my boyfriend I'm going to yoga
But if I actually go, I'm a manic pixie dream girl
But if I just say I'm going to yoga then don't, I'm a basic bitch
So I stop thinking about yoga
And dump my boyfriend so I can develop my own storyline
Move to Europe,
Live there for 4 years so I wouldn't be just another
basic bitch on her token eurotrip
But I didn't do anything interesting that might
Inspire a depressed male writer
It's been a crazy 4 years, so I
Go to bed and
It's funny, I
Used to say "Hail Mary"s and "Our Father"s as a kid, but
Now my precious nightly prayer session goes something like this:
"Hail Mary, full of spite
Hollow be my existence
Give me this day,
My daily affirmation
And forgive me my made-up trespasses"
But Mary and the Father sleep in separate beds now
And God is just the patriarchy saying
"Stop hitting yourself!"
"Stop hitting yourself!"
"Stop hitting yourself!"
Step off of the know-ledge
Now I use booze like a sledge hammer
And cigarettes as a DIY liposuction kit
So if I can't shatter the glass ceiling
At least it can shield me from the wind so
I can spark up when men tell me how
To blame other women
And I can drop ash on their cocks and say
"I heard you coming a minute away"
Thursday, May 1, 2014
National Poetry Month Day 29: Autophage Checklist
Kicking rust with a whole shoe
Aerated
And follicles of oat
Cry for breakfast
Granola oxide
Crispy bitter dense
Emerging economy of sweetness
Feed the machine
Ask myself
Do I bend or break
Today
Do I bend or break
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
National Poetry Month Day 28: Counting
I held up all my fingers
At gunpoint
to my head
They were counting reasons
why I'm still at work
They are brave and less biased than I
Odwalla Marcellus Wallace tosses lentils in my face
Capital precipitates but
I can't make it rain
Unless the dance is done
Before the setting sun
Sets the table
And makes my bed
Breaks my head
Like a piggy spank bank
And I wake up to
Trail mix of numbers and signs
At gunpoint
to my head
They were counting reasons
why I'm still at work
They are brave and less biased than I
Odwalla Marcellus Wallace tosses lentils in my face
Capital precipitates but
I can't make it rain
Unless the dance is done
Before the setting sun
Sets the table
And makes my bed
Breaks my head
Like a piggy spank bank
And I wake up to
Trail mix of numbers and signs
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