the heebie jeebies

this is about a poet who writes bird poems —
without birds appearing in the poems

mouth breathers and thirteen year old prostitutes often appear crying

artillery shots echo in the blue distance

the poet is a sketch artist of sorts
defining a lust for love in a criminal world

the spindle kids appear
congratulations — you made it past the needles and pokes

you’re in the fabric of gutter poets
enmeshed for eternity

she’s got pumpkin voodoo on the kitchen cabinets

the word piles are dense and are never really in focus

actually this poem is about a baksheesh for a back rub… huh?

see i’ve got this knot on my latissimus dorsi — the heebie jeebies, know what i mean?

and she’s says:

So I’m going to get Tropicana juice with my father last night at 2 am at some all night grocery store on Biscayne and 79th street, and I’m thinking back about the Hustler magazine I riffled through earlier yesterday morning. I found it between the mattress and box spring, you know? And I see this photo spread and think why do people send in photographs of their turds? The magazine has a contest to find the largest turd in America and people from all over the country send in pictures of super long spiraling turds in their toilets. And I think about the technicians at Walgreen’s — what are they thinking when gathering the photos into the sleeves when a half dozen turd shots are at the end of the stack. Do they show other people at the store? What kind of person mails this to a magazine? What kind of magazine wants this?

i mumble-mouth my way out
i got nothing to say

“I don’t know how to write. I know how I write. And then the next day, I don’t know again. The not knowing is what makes writing interesting and enjoyable to me.”

— Ottessa Moshfegh / “How to Shit”