Overdose Note #24
Displease your hometown. Uncork the cavity of its genuine
sick like milk-rot, the argument of its knived, gutless lilies,
lips licked at the forkroad of another death. Its definitions
of grieving something like embers put out in your mouth.
Despise your carnal upbringing, its urn of warm warning,
its whippet of whorled snow. Desire no desire but insult.
Unflatter your memory: that girl sacrificed to a faceless,
tentacled god, how she crawled onto a bike path, & lived.
Despair your mentioned name, its siloed ghost a pop
of cyanide in the tylenol, a pop of pop in the lighter fluid,
fentanyl in the weekend stash. Dreamboat your backyard,
its lonely hours spent wondering why people eat people,
numbing a lung of summer air. Unanswer your prayers.
Decide no safety’s worth saving if your mouth’s a snare.
Sicker
On the surface I look sick
but in a good way, like Oh, she’s sick—
but it’s just me, and I am
happy to look this unwell for you—
this succubus-sick, I mean
chic, deliciously starved, sick-skinny,
I mean stick, when I wear
that crop top, I always sick it in,
I mean suck, like that’s what
he means when we’re in the parking
lot, late at night, snow on the
blades of the windshield, and he says
Suck, and I’m not supposed
to feel sick, I’m supposed to be flat,
I mean flattered, and I guess
I am, in a sick sort of way, to be his,
chosen, at last, there’s a name
for this, sick-me, no, pick-me girl,
when being chosen is the prize
to be won, and really, I just want to
sick, I mean slip, inside an
actress’ skin, the sickle moon of
her stomach, but when I stun,
am I just stunted, am I just a kid
with female parts, two bullet
-hole ovaries and an inability to
please, am I just an abrasion
of flesh, an acrobat of bone, as
I sick my fingers past my teeth,
on a tightrope of acid, by the end
of this my throat will be
fucked, but at least I’ll look like
the light I drank as a child,
lithium-blue pool of a pixelated
want, and when I say want,
do I mean won’t, when I say just,
do I mean justified, when I
give my excuse, car-sick, heat-sick,
home-sick, am I just sick
of this cyclical body, how I sync,
I mean sink, into my cess
-pool of hunger, call it diet, call
it cleanse, as I enter that
nothingness, I mean really, have
you ever gone to bed hungry,
deliberately, have you ever pressed
your tongue to the proof of
your mouth, let the sores be mirror
-borne, envied their taste, god,
their waste—how somehow, even
when I, like a liquor, leave my
lips, I’ll think I’ve gotten thicker,
no, I know—
SEX SLAVERY IS INVADING OUR SUBURBS BILLBOARD DURING MIDWESTERN SUMMER
the cruel price
of cow’s milk.
the intersection
where a girl got
abducted. inside
the gas station
bathroom stall,
a poster warns
sex traffickers
can look just
like your father
so text HELP
if god left you
stranded in
his image with
no one to turn
to but a sign.
Aspen Taylor is a poet and visual artist currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry from NYU, where she teaches and serves as a Poetry Editor for Washington Square Review.
She can be found on Instagram @aspen.leaves.
