Chenelle Milford
Ways to Eat
You are the spider, mother fucker
I implore you to stretch your brain
Reptilian, arachnid, does not matter
Write your stories—they are important
They are relevant to poetics now
And forever and in between you and me
And that is all a lie—we are liars, rememberers
I am the boar—I have a belly full of your kind
I am not worried about forgetting
I am not worried about your acidic saliva
You take eight hours to eat a mouse
It is a physical impossibility for you to eat me
I decided not to care that all I need is slop
I do not mind your antisocial self
My pig will not break under the pressure
Of your tarantula—it is not easy to bend me
I will have you pinned down on a board
In the end—I will have your exoskeleton
Pinned down in my fucking brain
In the end—you will see me superior
Hallmark
Staring at the blank cardstock wondering what to write
there is not a thing to write
Staring at the blank Hallmark card wondering what
will inhabit the spot on the inside of the cover
Staring at the blank wall making animals out of the shapes
left by the texture gun when the contractor came
Staring at the rings on the left hand wondering what
light refracts in what directions and why
Staring at the empty Heineken bottle wondering where
the next will come from and how it will go flat
Staring at the light in the ceiling—eyes have purple
spots following every glance or glare and stare
Staring at the movie on the television seen a hundred
times before with nothing new to be seen
Staring at a blank Hallmark card wondering what
she would write inside of it on her cigarette breaks
Staring at the birthday card she manifested and bought for me
explaining that we were both just one fucked up person
Staring at the rubberband on my wrist wondering when
it will be tight enough to leave a mark
Staring at the television and listening to the dialogue hoping
it is not the same boring dialogue in the next scene
Staring at the telephone when it rings at midnight
not knowing it is the ex of the Hallmark girl
Staring at a blank Hallmark card wondering what
her life would have meant if it could have been summed
up in a sentence or two or three or howevermany it would take
Horror House
A stab wound inspires interior design,
Scary to most who have white picket fences.
Those suburban children with their telescopes
Look up at the same sky which harbors
The crescent moon. It is this moon that appears
In the telescope of the stabbing victim.
Two crescent moons next to each other—their size
Shrinking considerably with time.
Point seven seconds for that double-edge
To infiltrate the denim armadillo shell.
It cooks like Anthony Bourdain's Vietnamese
Pig's blood porridge. Tommy
Hilfiger all-American jeans all-blood stained. All-American
Blood. Stupid-American girl. Now too many
Things in one thing, and you do not know which one. Who could
Have known this would not be the worst thing.
Towels in throats and shoulders in corners. Beating cunts
With knuckles sharpened by wolverine teeth
Left a house full of whores to consider their sins.