You are what you eat so if you see me munging

on a hypertrophied human arm in the wee hours

behind a sand dune, no you didn’t. Excuse me

while I shimmy into something a little less knowable.

Speaking of which, close all your eyes. Flood your

mouth with saliva. Hold it. Allow your hand to fall across

an expensive bottle of sun cream. Listen for the city

laughing at its buildings.      Now,	      be a darling



and spit. You are what you eat so I guess it’s time I ate

myself?                                 Nom … nom … nom?

I want to tell you so many things but my teeth

fly out of my face at warp speed. Not enough hours

in the day, which is to say conduct a prayer ceremony for

Search Engine Optimisation by washing your horrid bathmat

and use it barefoot straight out of the dryer        so nice.

It’s bin night so there’s that to look forward to as well.



This message and everything on this page

is an ad. Go here to end. Stub your second biggest

toe on the corner of the post office. (Required.) Nobody

tells you the itch is hereditary, that the link is coming from

inside the biography. If you like this, you might also like

the headache from eating ice cream too fast. Sit back and

look at the word going and say it out loud in the style of boing.

Play the Theremin with a boneless puck

          of chicken.

You are what you eat so I guess it’s time I ate an exhausted

whoopie cushion? Summon onomatopoeia? In this climate?

Sir, this is Wellbeing Wednesday. Let them eat pizza. Nom, nom,

nom, etc. I might be two-faced but I wear one snood. Why are we

always doing things? You know how you hurtle

          birthdaytowardbirthday

          umbilical turn numerical

I’m wondering if you might do that one more time

          with no feeling. Recall the erupted fog.

So very un-fog-like to erupt, isn’t it? Why are we always

doing things that could be interpreted as symptoms? We are

almost never in a helicopter orbiting a multi-story casino or

rissole? What’s with that? Shell fragments and slow sand

          stuck in our	ears. A few more payslips

and we can start applying for a new



place. You are what you eat so eat your friendversary? It is

easier to imagine the end of capitalism than a dry bathmat so eat

a dry bathmat? The trouble with nightmaring across a field

is the desire to smooch your own fractures. The thought of a

list. A trapped nerve indexed. Onlookers gasping in awe. Failed

empty file. Cossid larvae pattering the linoleum like big rain. Coins

dumped in the sink. Is this loud enough? Everything will be okay

for your landlord. Disappoint the oldest person you know by texting

them: Sorry but I can’t make it tonight. I’m a graphic designer. The sky

splitting up like parents. You have memories to look back on today

(content unavailable right now). This message and everything on this

page is bad. Hold me close and




lol. What in the unsanctified insularity brings you here? Anti-ageing

agent? You can run but you can’t Dow Jones. You are what you eat

so eat the rich.           haha.



                                                  See also: ha. You think this is funny?



This is a serious recipe for a hotdog made out of the same stuff as

a black hole. I want to tell you the story of the ocean trench at the

bottom of the deepest single use plastic bag. Today I have a caffeine

headache in my ass. Tomorrow you will enter a room carrying

nothing but crisp impermanence. How very dare you. I’ll have you

know days perish. Road tar softens. An empty cup suggests

water. There’s always a cloth getting dry somewhere. 3.4 billion

financial years ago a blob in the sea was the first thing to react to light.



          Thanks blob. You were cool.



They say you are what you eat so eat a billionaire in space?

In space no one can hear you in space. Can’t remember anything

else. Can’t even remember what is like




          eggs in the presence of hailstones.



Can’t remember a single thing.



          Can’t shake the thought that when I smile

          I’m manipulating muscles to expose a piece of my skull.


















Notes:

This poem appeared in Secret Third Thing by Dan Hogan, published by Cordite Books in 2023.

A video version of this poem was a finalist in the 2020 Queensland Poetry Festival Film + Poetry Challenge, which can be viewed here.

‘You can run but you can’t Dow Jones’ is a reference to the line ‘You can run / but you can’t / aquarium’ from Stingray Clapping by Andrew Choate.