A generation navigating illusionment:
I am one. Excavation; i sift. Shaking
a plastic basket.

Round - and channel mouths spout
a wire crosshatch. I
Tap
   Against
         My palm.

Fine flour lands on the counter and
In my head I listen to the same songs
because I already know the words.

I look for a truth outside my mind
because on weekdays I tell myself
I’m not worth knowing.

How do you stop hating yourself
When you hate yourself because
You hate yourself?

When I slide my hand across the counter,
White flour mist puffs and I listen:

Mac Miller’s alive. He said he’s
surviving on *****, almonds, and granola bars.

Grasped in some five fingers
A thin red handle.

I look at my dad laying on his side:
a shoulder pinned to neck.
Opposite arm relaxed, open-palmed.

His heavy body leaned on a crusty elbow
and you’d think his eyes swelled in utero
because he’d just fetalconjured the invention
of the television and its screen.

My brain swims in a bone basin
and I’m human because I can’t stop moving.
As narration and pixels flash in the bedroom,
(this room could be a womblike calm),
my dad is beached, rejected by the waters he denies.

In and out of sleep, he snores awake.
Other times my mom wakes him and says
she hasn’t stopped all day.
Sometimes families do not know to build safe spaces.
My brain shudders when I’m ****** and
when I have to weigh my cargo.

je souhaite que tes baisers
ne légitimait pas mon peau,
car tu me visites comme touriste
et vivrai dans mon corps
pour toujours et toujours froide.
je suis une nudiste - pas par choix
mais par l'anxiété
de quoi porter 👗

while i lay
sound asleep
but still, i don’t dream
of you;
of anything.

2 tablespoons general anxiety

1 large worry, finely diced

¾ cup internet memes

3 unfinished books, opened facedown on already cluttered surface

2 heaping teaspoons anger that I keep making too-watery iced coffee

1 dash missing my friends

8 large handfuls shame that i’m not being productive enough, roughly chopped

1 pinch writing everyday being harder than i’d anticipated

14oz thinly veiled joy of being trapped inside

57lb tiktoks that are entertaining but also rotting my brain, peeled

107g fear that i’ll never be great at anything, thoroughly rinsed and drained

72kg reliance on my boyfriend’s affection to substantiate my own sense of self worth

0 knowledge of how recipes are written for garnish

salt to taste

i want to
but i can’t inhale
past the crack in my ribcage

If cats could swim would you throw me in
Your bathtub brain?
The juxtaposition of your gold
Clawfoot base, black tub
Where your tenacity hesitates
Before dipping a toe
And with grit under your nails
Unplugging the drain