negligence has formed several kinds of rust
on my skeleton
now a nervous bag of tics
nauseous from chasing my tail

i gave aphrodite an ugly face
i painted it on her with grotesque muscle
blood and guts
then i noticed i was standing in the mirror,
naked
doing something like squeezing toothpaste into my ear canals
while singing a day to remember.

but i always text back
even if its paragraphs of acrimonious diatribe
i always text back
even if i'm just a little
verbose, perhaps
even if i'm just a little gaudy
and stupid
and i overthink everything,
i always text you back

and even if i have the wrong number
even if you called via the moon's reflection in a nasty puddle,
ew,
not my favorite method of contact, by the way--
i always text back

xoxo