I am Back on my
Bullshit
I have been testing a
theory: Can I cure myself
with more of myself?
I took an internet quiz:
it reveals if you are back on your bullshit
and it concluded: I was.
I changed my answers and it continued to say I was,
no matter what answers. It
just knew, somehow.
Sometimes the
electricity between synapses zig-zags
through one chemical and
other times
through a different
chemical, sometimes it is a cycle
of chemicals.
I figured out a way to
be more myself
than myself: I am the previous me and also the next
me.
I know which version
everyone likes best
because they keep
telling me.
I packed up all my stuff in cardboard
boxes
and hired movers and moved everything out.
Then I moved
all my same stuff
back into the same house.
How much of me is me? Everyone
participated in my guided tour
of a circuitous loop.
We were back at the beginning. Some said they knew how it was going to end.
I knew the ending
because I wrote the ending.
I Married a Fire Man
He handed me a single
match. I didn’t even have anything to strike it on.
He handed me a little
box of future fire: a matchbox that rattled but all the matches still stayed
tucked in their bed sleeping.
He gave me one of those
long plastic lighter things that my mom uses to light her jars of
scented candles.
He handed me that flint
scratch wiry bunsen burner lighter where you can actually see the wire
scrape the flint.
He gave me a sparkler.
Last Independence Day we didn’t have any matches so we lit them on
our electric stove in the
house and ran outside with them and chain-lit the whole box.
He handed me a bunsen
burner.
He gave me a whole gas
stove with four round gas flames. It’s the most controlled fire I know. He gave
me a bonfire that came with a group of people who stared at it like they can
see their
reflection in the flames.
He gave me a flame
thrower. It was even heavier than I expected.
He gave me a whole house
that was on fire and would not say what caused it to catch on fire.
He handed me a whole
forest fire. The whole thing. He set that fire too.
I am Britney Spears’
and Justin Timberlake’s Matching Denim Outfits
Someone said the red
carpet was lava
and didn’t tell them,
denim hem edges fraying.
Did everyone laugh
because the outfits matched,
or because they were
denim? I calculated an algorithm of magnitude
with matching and denim variables.
I sued journalists
who used the word
“patchwork,” sent cease and desist letters
to the ones who said,
“Denim Date.”
All denim must begin as
jeans and then get pulled apart: obvious
where the industrial
sewing needle punched
through layers, layers,
where thread was picked out.
They followed the denim
rule
of mixing washes, but
Justin’s base shirt was
only denim-colored.
Everyone winced.
Couples outfits make
couples
break up, and break up
and remember the outfits
were also denim and break up again.
A diamond choker is a
bracelet
for a neck
and a wrist is another neck
to wear a bracelet.
A denim hat is like
pants for your head. Ignore
the fashion reporter who
asks
what happens if she
unbuttons
the silver button on
the hat band.
The inside of the gown
is another denim gown.
The underside of the
choker, the bracelet, the belt
is white gold engineered
with holes to amplify
light through diamonds.
The back of every
photograph taken of us
is empty.
A Poem Written with a
Fountain Pen I Sold then Bought Back Again
I said yes,
I am the type of person
that dates my exes.
I make jumpy
declarations.
He said, “I have this
pen that would be perfect for you”
I have also thought
this before
then not and now again, I think this.
I do not say I have a
dopamine disorder
but everyone already
knows: caught me
broadcasting my wide
open heart.
I can only tell people
things they don’t care about. I talk about poetry
with pen people. I can’t stop saying things about pens to poetry people.
My pen went on a trip
without me. First North
Dakota
to the woman who just
finished law school.
She
and I have sold to each other so much
we both use a specific pen box
to ship things back
and forth.
She sold it to the man
in Alabama who calls me Mrs.
Loveland,
or ma’am.
This is not the only pen
he has in his possession that I regret selling.
I want a photo of their hands
to see if they
are actually my own hands.
Valerie Loveland is a poet and programmer living in Philadelphia. She enjoys audio
poetry, video games, celebrity cats, and fountain pens. Her most recent two
books are Female Animal, and Mandilble Maxilla.