by Rachel Stempel
Support Into the Void by reading this piece in a beautiful print edition of Issue #17 that’ll look great on your bookshelf.
Mixed media manuscripts have no place
in my concrete pipedream. Everything
I say I’ve said before & will say again, verbatim.
I write my manifesto, epic in length
the same break
every page, a xerox’d whimsy.
I know what girly bits will sell underwire knives.
I know to make a poem sexy, repetition
my unmistakable thrust. I’ve a healthy relationship
with self-hate, guaranteeing
my consumption. I fear I’m losing
myself to feminine. It’s a tired game the body violence
& other invocations.
Ruffles implicate the wearer & God,
I’m worn, turned inside
out, a carafe of porcelain shards.
This is a eulogy for my future
prolapse. Dodge irrationals,
those tart-infused, better-on-paper pricks.
I cultivate my own violence & not
for the sake of poetry. Latex-fitted, my right hand
ready to gouge how many holes can I fasten to fill
with resinous sap, glitter punctuated make statue from starlet.
I want to peg the disgraced editor of a literary magazine.