3 Poems
punkass strawberries
theyve got jowls and everything. these are some punk rock strawberries
there’s a civilization in every seed and each one is yelling at the one next
door to turn down the bass        and the sirens        to end more quietly
and all delicately. and like, thematically. or something
like the end of the world will be        and often is
all saltwater on flesh
“Nearer My God To Thee” playing as the sun goes down
it’s mouth clamping down on our corpses
decorating the cupcake of this planet        cute
CNN will still be broadcasting, of course. they’re holding the Titanic’s final
note in a glassbottle in their database until they receive confirmation that
the world is indeed ending.        an intern has confirmed this (we’re
good for something) (sometimes) (would you like these
stapled or paper clipped)
i bring my mouth down on the strawberry, getting seeds stuck between my teeth
i bare my teeth at the sun        pretending the red flesh is someone else’s
i am so totally punk rock. i don’t look the sun in the eye but
i am still so totally punk rock. i so totally feast on the jowls
of poetry and the prelude to chapstick and smoothies and
metaphor rotting in the fridge.
i am the sun, coming for the world. i am muting all these baby armageddons.
these berry flavored apocalypses.        cute      cute cute cute      ,      the end
WORKING FRIDAY NIGHTS IN HARVARD SQUARE
the lady ordering a latte was reading bossy pants
and i was like “hey is that book good?”
and she looked at me like i had seventeen fingers
attached to my left cheek because
       How Dare The Coffee Gnome Speak Like a Person About Person Things
and i was like YIKES OKAY MAYBE I’M NOT A PERSON AFTER ALL
and then she took her drink and went to sit down and unzipped
a flap in the skin of her upperarm and shoved the book inside
and i was like YIKES OKAY maybe i’m not the one who’s not human
and then a different lady, the woman who paints her
face purple blue blue blue glitter came in with her luggage
and her big scarf and she sits in the corner
and she is talking to someone who isn’t there and she’s doing this while
painting her face all starry night but like if van gogh had done it at the discoteque
but like if the disoteque was underwater.
       and she’s talking about the jazz age and also about
the fire that burned down the horsestable but also she’s really not able
to stomach dairy this week and she doesn’t know what to do about it
because being lactose intolerant is becoming an expensive trend in this college town
but also HEY YOU        YOU WITH THE MOTOROLA
WAITING FOR YOUR COFFEE      YEAH YOU I SEE YOU
       YOURE NOT TAKING ME ANYWHERE
I DONT EVEN HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE AND IM SICK
OF THIS 1984 SHIT        I WISH YOU’D ALL JUST LEAVE ME ALONE
OR AT LEAST SPOT ME 22 FUCKING CENTS
and she turns to her ghost friend and sobs, she is sobbing and then
she is medusa’s mouth again, snakes coming out of the cranium
of every word she says, she says one day     one day one day one
day one day one day one day one day
one day one day one day
one day one day one day one day
one day one day the the entire world will be
blue and people will be nice and maybe. maybe
she is the most Person person here
the summer i keep yelling
i’ve swallowed all the elephants in the room,
they hide under sheets like i can’t see them
but i know they’re there. there’s a tiny dancing man
making coffee somewhere between my elbow
and my chest emoji. he back and forths
to collect the magic beans scattered where i creak
i’ve started yelling about capitalism in the kitchen
i do this by yelling CAPITALISM!!!! in the kitchen
sam tells me to stop yelling un-popped punk at her
and marisa tells me to stop reading Pinsky.
       Pinsky uses his indoor voice
and i think about how it will still always be louder than my outdoor voice
       so now i am busting down the doors in my mouth
the same way i am always busting open follicles
to get to the caffeine of myself
where the tiny man dances
while tiny man works, his third eye puts an ear to my chest and hums along
i don’t have to tell him how much i love him or that it weirds me out
that i do or that i know his voice like skin that traps an ingrown hair
       like something that’s part of me, something i could also rip out, something
       with eyelashes the same length as mine
i don’t know where i live anymore but i’ve started falling
asleep, bottlecap charging in my palms. i am soaking up
cosmic energy to phone the ambivalent space booger.
i need to ask the Moon a thing. i need to ask it what to do
when people keep leaving?      when they’re actually
planets hatching from human suits. i need to ask how i too
can become a planet. or a non planet      or an old cassette,
or something like a hatchet to the gravitational pull
between scars when scars match up.      still ringing
so i ask sam instead and she tells me that when the kid upstairs runs,
dust falls from the ceiling. her ivy plant covered with the slap of baby feet.
i leave the bottlecap upside down by my bed to catch more
it’s always empty in the morning      so i feed it to the elephants
and they tremble      their nails are upside down shot glasses
cracking under the weight of the espresso that the tiny man in my chest
is stacking every time i feel a thing.      every time i close doors
instead of busting them open      i am running out of rooms.
i wake up next to a notebook open like a wound
one centimeter to the left of mine so i’ll never write it
down just right even when i finally can and so
i’m yelling in the kitchen      i’m busting open follicles,
i want the scars lined up and they tell me to stop yelling
to use my indoor voice      to stop using hammers instead of keys
they want me to leave the room
and there is caffeine everywhere     i am leaking magic beans
and the tiny man is riding the elephants out of my chest
he wants me to look them in the eye      but their eyelashes
are too thick. they look like mine