. Drag

She can not (not no she can’t) stop (help me someone stop yes now because no) the downward tug of her mouth that gravity (shoot the messenger go back in time and kill Isaac Newton) has decreed because (what up, cuz?) she is as unhappy (happy endings are Technicolor lies that lie in wait for those whose hopes are too high) as she is old (old habits are hard to change).

Her friends suggest collagen injections (unhappy women craving hot beef injection lining their pockets with serrated good will) but she knows more plump lips (bee sting lips are certainly sexy says he who would sell some lipstick [lesbian?] to me) would be more mass (e=mc2) to drag (god I need a cigarette) down at the corners (at the corners of her eyes tears squeeze through even though she does emotional Kegel exercises like a good girl and never says anything provocative like divorce or lonely or failure [to launch instead of exploding or worse imploding]) every time another blow (children blow dandelions because they are the softest mess invented by that blow-by-blow color commentator who calls himself god [god damn]) is struck at what dreams (not all dreams have wings or screams but they all are equipped with mosquito net screens to keep out the dark matter [does it matter?] of the subconscious sea [don’t you see?] that she pushes down while scrubbing floors and takes for a walk when she’s slamming doors) she has left (she has left the building) and this time she swears

that
she
. . .will
. . .smile


-Sarah Torribio Excuse me

She perches (and searches for a reason to unlock the door) on the bathtub (rub-a-dub-dub, if only she could finally relax), X-Acto (she know exactly what she’s doing) blade (of grass or glass, it doesn’t matter) in one hand (wearing the world’s hand-me-downs), iodine (she starts to whine [she chugs wine] “when will my head shut up?” [up, up and away from this place]) and Neosporin (her skin start pouring) in the other. She doesn’t (maybe she does at some level) know how she has returned (and turned into this lifeless, hopeless excuse [excuse me?] for a human being) to this place (one letter short of palace but spells hell [maybe she is in hell]). Her stomach is full (full of shit) of guilt (living on stilts, wanting to fall and end this existence); her hands (moving like sand in an hour [for hours] glass) hold (and mold) her relief. Time moves (through the cracks of the floor) slow as she glides (the new blade makes it effortless) the triangle-shaped blade (not grass, not glass, but relief) across her left (she has left her emotional pain behind) thigh (fried chicken, that is where this mess began).

-Eryn O’Neal