oh expired chicken
you never tasted right
to begin with
shredded and unseasoned
marred by hints of skin
and cartilage
you were too embarrassing to share
and too expensive to discard

oh expired chicken
the aftermath of underestimating how much
is in each pound
and overestimating how much I eat
a shopping mistake made
after being a parasite to school cafeterias
and my mother's cooking
for eight months

oh expired chicken
throwing you away was harder
than cutting off an ex-lover
my heart yearns for what you could have been
(tasty food in my stomach)
even though you were never enough
you would make an indomitable enemy
an atrocious friend
and the worst boyfriend ever
we would have a toxic and trying relationship
but that is for another poem

Chicken scratch,
Chicken scratch...

scribbles,
   Slashed against the page...

What is this rage?

This ink is my blood.
   Let me bleed some more.


~Robert van Lingen

when you’re going solely off of what feels right, it’s pretty easy to be swayed when you ate bad chicken or take a bubble bath or the streets look friendly but so does the underside of my comforter so you tell me how am i supposed to know?

the hens
have raised their fowl fists,
protested the pecking order,
debated the Cuckoo Clucks Clan,
and started a coup in the coop.
they have a bird's eye view from their fort,
truly an eggcelent perch to reside in while they gather resources and
duck when enemies fire.
joining is a nestcessary evil to end the corruption.
so, my dear,
please don't chicken out.

Rotting meat lined the walls
of the spot where the crime was committed
Locked from the outside
Shut in as the oil burned,
the smoke engulfing,
the flames consuming the people as they screamed, "Let me out"
but the indentations of the footprints on the door spoke loudest
They spoke of 25 beautiful faces
lost in pursuit of the American Dream.®