| poem with only a little bit of sacrilege Myles Taylor I wanna be like the heroes in the movies but every time I drop something I instinctively jump out of the way / I don’t know how to re-wire self-preservation but without it I might not survive long enough to be in the position to help / I’m here on borrowed time, as all of you have figured out, I’m sure / I feel like the parrot in the back of the pet store on my block that is obviously a mob front, like, I just keep seeing unspeakable horrors but I can only repeat the same few words and none of them really encapsulate my feelings / a couple of them are “wild” and “toxic” and the others won’t mean anything to you if you’re anyone I want reading my poems / god is a girlboss who keeps promising me a raise and I really don’t want to know how the clothes are made / this is why I’m not in therapy / I’ve been good for too long / let my chaos expand until I implode into a rebirth / every day will feel like the summer I slept on seven used mattress pads stacked on someone else’s floor / my friend brought coronas as a housewarming even though it most certainly was not a house / nothing ever feels like a house anymore / I want to be singular and self-sustaining / like the moon! / like the fucking moon / no like don’t even start with me a man stumbled past me on my post-shift cig willing the train to function properly and the moon was full and the sky was clear and the man was incoherent yelling “stinky!” over and over until he looked up and crystal clear went “oh, the moon.” and that’s the power of the moon, baby! / an all-ages event! a birthday party! / stop writing about the moon, boring people yell, and the poets pick up pitchforks and yell an indistinguishable battle cry / we clash / but no one gets hurt about the moon / truly what else can I live for when all I see out of my window is a car dealership and oppression and the moon? the fucking moon / just good vibes and one piece of American trash / just like me / just like me |
| * Writing Prompt: List 3 words you find yourself saying or writing a lot lately. Write about one or more of the words. Where did you first hear them? Whose influence do they show? What do they have in common? |
Hypochondria
Marie Ungar
I went to bed worried my hands would fall off and woke up
with both my hands. The sheets gently touched them
just to remind me they were there. I used them to turn off my alarm,
lace my shoes, twist the faucet’s handle. In other news,
I’ve started running again. It gives me space and a way to think.
On my run the other morning, I came across a castle.
I’d expected to find something unexpected by now,
so I was unsurprised, but happy. I texted you a picture.
“I found a castle!” I said, and just like that,
you were still someone I’d text about a castle, or a river, or a sky,
or a bad day I didn’t have anything to say about, or falling snow,
or the long walk home from the liquor store where I didn’t know
what to buy for a friend’s birthday. The days had been getting shorter,
and I was becoming frightened, the kind of person who darts across the street,
even when no traffic is coming. But yesterday,
I went to bed worried I would fall out of love and woke up
still in it. The sky shone through a river of falling snow.
I am telling you this not because it was unexpected, or surprising,
but because I was so happy. To still be in love. To still see the sky.
To still have hands and somewhere to place them.
Previously published in Lake Effect (Volume 26, Spring 2022)
* Writing Prompt: Write about a moment in which something not happening—or nothing happening—felt like a pivotal event.
Myles Taylor (they/he) is a transmasculine poet, organizer, host, award-winning poetry slam competitor, food service worker, Emerson College alum, Capricorn-Aquarius cusp, and glitter enthusiast. Their list of publications can be found at myles-taylor.com, and their neuroses can be found on Twitter @mylesdoespoems.
Marie Ungar is a writer from Charlottesville, Virginia. She is currently studying English at Harvard University, where she has served as the poetry editor of The Harvard Advocate. Her recent work appears in Four Way Review, Palette Poetry, Lake Effect, and The Moth Magazine. You can find her on Twitter @mreeeungr