Too Long; Didn’t Read

[in 95 words]

Sometimes wasting time is the only way

to get through the day alive.

It’s not a pretty thing, survival,

but those TikTok dances are,

those influencers who get paid to look

as hot as physically possible,

those filters that make me look like I am happy.

The internet’s obsession with Schrödinger’s cat and self-

deprecating humor makes it easier

to look in the mirror and see (and not see) only pixels—

only a host for a virus, a body

dying at a hand other than my own.

And that’s all that I’ve ever really wanted.

 

[in 19 words]

The internet, a virus

that looks a lot like Schrödinger’s mirror.

Sometimes I am alive.

Sometimes I am not.

 

 

to the tacos found in the ruins of the burned church

christened in paper-thin wrappers / plastic melted on your shells / you were made as inedible as the body of christ / I’ll switch out the communion wine / with fire sauce in your name / put hell in my mouth and call it a prayer / ask my mother why I no longer attend mass / why my sunday best was replaced / with monday's worst / why I can recite every fast food jingle from the past decade / but I no longer remember / the cadence of my aunt’s voice / sometimes it is not enough / to be remembered / sometimes you must burn / to leave an afterimage

 

 

on referencing my past addiction to self-harm without asking for pity: a contrapuntal