VolkesWagondaOtaku

My sister is not an animal. I am very clear about this when I introduce her to people and she starts rubbing her hands over my hair and making weird chittering sounds and, every now and then, turning into a raccoon. “She’s absolutely still a human. It’s just an Ozzy thing,” I say to our middle school principal when I have to drag a fluffy bandit out of the janitor’s closet before pest control accidentally kills a student. “It’s just an Ozzy thing,” I explain to my first boyfriend when we find a ball of gray fur spinning in circles on the living room couch. “It’s just an Ozzy thing,” I mutter to Mom and Dad when they ask me why my sister ha...

Sisyphus is stuck in the airport waiting for the monsoon to end and the planes to start flying again. He is now agonizing over not booking the earlier flight, which was more expensive but which would have meant he could be on his way to Elysium right now, this very moment, instead of being stuck in the airport. Across the aisle, a father tries in vain to hush three very loud children. They are screaming something about missing the newest episode of their favorite cartoon. The mother repeatedly promises to go buy them snacks and charge their iPads when the electricity comes back on, but to no avail. Sisyphus remembers with a sudden surge of...

I want to stay here for eternity Resting on the shores of my dreams As I roll a pearl between my tongue and the roof of my mouth Back and forth, back and forth The waters beckon me Gently tug on my clothes They insist that I feel how cool how salty how Immense their body is beneath me Hoping to impress themselves upon my skin Hard enough that the sun won’t dry it up But I don’t move, I’m resting A little crab plucks at my toes To remind me that I’m awake The beach forgets its footprints Wind whips sand into my eyes It is not clear to me what I’m supposed to bring in my picnic basket Or which sea shells to take home in my yellow bucket Thes...

Phones ringing off the hook in my poor fool brain I can’t tease apart the stimuli Hey, operator, could you not Redirect these calls to the wrong center Stop leaving voicemails I’ll never get to Stop misspelling names and forgetting phone numbers I’d really appreciate a little clarity in there A better filing system, maybe, a little less dust Hallways that don’t start and stop in the middle of nowhere Wrinkles that don’t fold into themselves like old prunes I swear, I’m a bright and cheerful woman They say I bring color to the room Just like flowers do And balloons do (Ugly vases too) So it would be helpful and polite and very good of you T...

‘Poetry is pain’ A poet once told me As if poems weren’t a celebration As if the writing and reading of it Weren’t a sweet illicit pleasure As if songs didn’t remind me of eating oysters Or of sunkissed laughter Or of sex As if to navigate the world with grace One must first obtain a degree in suffering As if the word ‘exploitation’ didn’t make my lips tingle With the fullness of that sound— How many times must we, the certified oppressed, beat our pain into new ghastly shapes? It’s not the pain that makes a poem. How can you love this When you don’t understand The pursuit of beauty is an escape from pain A way to transmute our lives into ...

All day indoors as the winter collapses around me. Do you think Emily Dickinson had an exercise routine? Would she have been the type to subscribe to a private gym Drink green smoothies and practice meditation Watch online videos about skincare and coconut water Presumably she baked - Wrote letters - impassioned - a silent vortex of words - The economy of motion expressed by condensed punctuation - a dash - that generous multitasker of a pause in breath - How did she do it, living within such confines? I found myself sprawled like a toppled ‘i’ Watching sleet streak the windows and smudge the smudgy skies All day indoors as loneliness coll...

Reading Chen Chen and eating a mandarin I am amazed at my brazen nails, so small Cut too close to the cuticles by my over-cautious Nai Nai Yet they dig into the tense pebbled flesh Wa wa like a gravedigger on New Year’s Eve The stain gets underneath my fingernails All day my hands smell of tian tian citrusI want someone to explain myself to me More than I want to explain myself. Is this why we read poetry? After all the time I spend explaining other people’s ideas back to them It would be nice to have myself explained back to me By someone whom I can be an echo Crying my name and I love you again and again to deaf ears Yet heard nonetheles...

The Queen looks in the mirror, and with her magic powers she twists the glass this way and that. The cool surface bulges and ripples. The Queen warps tall as a giant, small as a mouse, fat or thin, flesh turned to liquid. She could pour her body into a sieve and let it fall into a pleasing mold. And yes—even now her body distends, her breasts grow enormous, her belly stretches taut. And then she’s thin again. In the realm of the mirror she has perfect control over her image. She looks in, and a girl with blood red lips and snow white cheeks looks back, eyes huge and black and oblong. She is the most beautiful in the land. The fairest of th...

This is not an ice cream truck. Clearly there was an attempt, during its accursed creation, to make the thing look like an ice cream truck. It is painted in bright colors, plays a jaunty little tune as it swings past, and is labeled in a large, easy-to-read font: ICE CREAM. But it is not an ice cream truck.     These sleepy New England suburbs have never seen the like. Adults who live here startle when they hear the cheerful, artificial tune, and look offended that such a city beast should be transplanted into the suburbs. The children, on the other hand, are fascinated. The not-an-ice-cream-truck makes its way slowly down the streets ever...