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Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

untitled

Lisa Newkirk


being bad
to remind yourself
that you're not comfortable
with who you are.
you're stupidly frozen for some reason
paralyzed
you can't get moving or motivated to help yourself
you keep hoping one day
you'll stop taking afternoon naps
all afternoon,
you'll call back the people you promised you would
call back
you'll
send out resums in next day's mail
to the people you promised to send them out to
last week,
you'll exercise
to keep up that healthy body
to get rid of that double chin
you see appearing in the mirror every time you look
you'll write up checks
for the bills
that are now months overdue
it's all too much to do
so
for now
you wind up relenting
and relying
on being bad to yourself
to take control of your life:
you eat the rest of the half gallon of
milk chocolate fudge ice cream from Dean's
and a cheddar cheese sandwich

with thick slices of fake-colored orange
cheddar cheese
and mayonaise
lots
on both pieces of seven-grain wheat bread and
on top of each little bite
you take the knife and spread more mayonaise on after each bite
more fat
to clog your arteries,
purposefully
yet without any voluntary muscle movement,
this huge white eggy blob (mayonaise is made from eggs)
is on the next spot on which you're supposed to put your lips
and sink your teeth around,
that blob will be in your mouth
chewed and mushed up with that seven-grain wheat bread there is
(mostly mushed)
and swallowed
down to your stomach
and forever into your body
you can't take it back, even though
you haven't put your lips around it yet:
you chew
you think it's control
this deliberate badness
but it's not
it's being lazy
you're helpless



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