The American Poetry Review

WHY NOT ME

When I clog my ears with cotton ballsall I hear is my weird brain rustling.It’s a knock-kneed diorama,with tape and wisps the wrong texture,perspective lines all unscrewed,sea scene rustling inside my head.O crap existence. Fake landlocked,warm and weepy in the trade winds,in our lean-to. With you, my boyfriends.I’ll hug you half to death onmy parents’ sorry Scandinavian couch.I’ll construct you each a heartthrob shrinewith rosehip candles and lip slickand the most velvet of paper.I give and give. Sorry I’m not sorry.You can say one thing for me,I wear my jean vest wrong side outand make bitchy faces at the thunder,I strut out in the glare of thisexpensive hangover and theorange juice place embraces me,so why do I remain so unchosen?The wax ocean on the sick hot sand.It’s all in your head. My fingers worryover a ridge growing between my hair,Jesus my face is tissue paper. I’mcoming untraced. I’m rubbing off.

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