anxiety playlist
sex “shoulda felt good,
but i can hear the Jaws theme song on repeat
in the back of my head.”
i used tinder for its intended purpose:
havent slept for three nights since, ive
been on the verge of panic attacks and vomit.
my therapist needs to know that i
am a feminist, that i’m a modern girl
but i fold in half. meaning
i should buy
something to overcompensate
like a convertible with leather seats,
with cupholders for my tears and sparkling wine.
hotels with bathtubs full of sparkling wine
and girls with glitter tits in string bikinis.
my therapist needs to know im not a ghost,
i am not a sheet filled with crumbs and condoms.
everyone needs to know ive gotten too candid.
Dear Mom
dear mom,
im not a good judge
of how this is going.
im teliing myself everyday not to be
overzealous about men or the weather.
ive been looking at pictures of jay-z
holding beyonces leg at basketball games
and i think i need that because
ive also been googling restless leg syndrome.
keith buckley last night said something about
hiding what he doesnt want to talk about in books
and i hide my secrets in my poems but not well.
dear keith buckley,
i need your advice on something.
dear amber tamblyn,
im writing a selfish poem like yours.
dear keith buckley
dear keith buckley
dear keith buckley
i dont know when to stop
for s
The only guacamole i can make
Is just salsa mashed with avocado.
We had a picnic of salsa,
Avocado, lemon juice and cigarette butts.
The first time sam taught me how to hold a cigarette
(There were many times)
We ate lasagna and sat on the swings behind my parents house.
It was before i left for milan or
Before she left for eastern europe.
Before i spilled everything
All the time
Sam spilled her signature Nalgene full of Franzia on me
While i drove Nana Grizol to the Green Door. I was a straight edge
baby playing Deer Hunter with a punk band at a bar with dirt floors.
Six years later sam tells me
It doesnt matter the circumstance;
the feelings are always the same.
Whats his name said
“I carry your heart with mine”
Or something and that fall i was
Working at a suburban mall
Smoking gauloises blondes for you
And could hear your combat boots on the European clobblestone streets.
When i was gone i felt you in the soles of mine
Reaching out like two strings held together
With push pins on a map.
goddess domesticity
dear mom,
i spend my food stamps at the fancy co-op.
everything is more $$$ there but everyone is
like that brittany weeks poem “everyone at whole foods
is good at sex.”
i touch their tvp and feel weird.
i debated telling you that my thighs were growing further apart,
that my new patronus is the lactic acid building up in my shins.
we both know i dont care and u send me black leather pants
that dont fit in my mailslot.
the pages of my used cookbooks are still,
dogeared, while my friends instruct me to smash garlic.
i havent seen the bottom of my sink in a month.
my hair clogged your old vacuum cleaner.
ill walk naked in front of my uncurtained window.
ill drink
anything
five nights out of the week.
i went on a blind date with a boy who told me i was just like my mother.
how did he know?
meghan milsted is from Buffalo, NY by way of Washington, DC. She is published in Everyday Genius and other compilations.