For Amelia Newman
Can you hear me? Wait—you’re on mute!
Uh huh! Okay, I’ve got you now! It’s me!
…
Yep, it’s Velma’s knobby knees,
the Grinch’s gay mothers,
Elmo’s favourite ice cream flavour—pistachio—
and that music that plays when Fiona turns from Princess to Princess Ogre.
…
Would you want some carrots from my fanny pack? Probably not, huh?
My social script says not to ask people this, but if you could have anything other than skin encasing your body, what would it be?
…
Juicy, juicy verbs. Bamboozle. Canoodle. Skedaddle.
…
REPLY ‘STOP’ TO UNSUBSCRIBE.
…
Sorry for leaving so abruptly. I’m terrified of UTIs.
…
Is it possible to be a Sharknado, yet still boring?
It says a lot that the Sims universe doesn’t allow for hatefucking.
I’m not witty enough for cool-girl poetry, but not soft enough for subtlety.
…
STOP.
…
Even in those spaces, I’m defined by an imagined proximity to men. Like, call me a dyke, not a fag hag.
We can’t all be the kind of gay that fits comfortably within a Kmart catalogue.
…
The oh-so subversive existence of cowering indoors eating biscuits. Alone, as usual.
…
It’s like I only exist within my own head. Indivisible zero… that’s a thing, right? No, don’t answer.
We can only fold in on ourselves so many times, I’ve heard. That’s real math.
…
You can’t count on sunset that close to the arctic. The heart itself isn’t even heart-shaped.
…
Sometimes you just have to sit in it, ripe and clinging like… a soiled diaper. What’s my GP gonna do? Tell me to drink water and stop being a bitch? Because I refuse to do either.
…
I keep crying over Masterchef. I love you like XO sauce. I just can’t respond to your texts.
…
But which did you wear best?
The loneliness or the sweater vest?
…
STOP.
…
My list was unhelpful today:
Party toys that you can flick at people, that leave marks on the wall, that your dad banned from the house.
Putty squished into carpet fibres.
Pizza left out for too long, gummy with cheese tar.
Papier-mâché, half-eaten.
Plain old grief.
…
All the sticky things.
…
Like licking your own uvula.
—No, uvula.
…
Like a well-used dildo, shoved into the drawer when their real friends come over.
…
Like a waterbed, wet and forgettable.
I guess we keep these childhoods somewhere, isotopic in our bones.
…
STOP.
…
Gimme one hour of scream time.
