Poetry

"V-Word Pills" — published in Inklings Arts and Letters

​

Three weeks yellow,

then one week brown.

Cystic face mounds,

spotty monthly,

useless, pointless.

(3 packs)

 

Each week

a different blue.

Annual panic attack,

relationship OCD,

skin with less pin-pointed pain,

fixed, regular menstruation.

(12 packs)

 

Three weeks red,

three days red,

four days white.

This time, maybe,

I’ll feel like

me again.

(? packs)

​

"Shoreline" — published in Inklings Arts and Letters

 

I wash my hands without

thoughts of bashing my head

against the sink creeping in

​

I wake up and

snooze my alarm

but don’t wish for a coma

​

I eat all three meals

because I have hunger

​

I got here myself

(a lie).

​

Parents held me as

I sobbed like a scraped-knee child;

Sister and friends patiently listened as

I cursed the name I still can’t quit

​

But,

credit is most due to

the twenty milligrams that only cost

seven dollars per bottle of thirty

and a pity-soaked conversation with

my second favorite pediatrician

​

(truth).