ending, this week

This poem is from a website called Gloom Cupboard.

Lindsea Kemp
Ending, this week

This week has been nothing but endings.
Sticky endings, pulled apart with little
mucus ropes hanging together.
Clean endings, one schwap
of the axe and cut.
Mixed up endings, where
goodbye sounds like hello coming
from a pair of red Rocky Horror lips
that you later find out
is your sphincter.

This week I realized I am dying.
And for some reason all I want
is a hamburger, greasy.
I want to shove the thin
ground beef patty into my
open mouth. Squeeze a couple
ketchup covered fries in.
Suck frantically at the straw of my Coke
like it is life’s elixir.
My hands are covered
in grease, and I have a
funny feeling my soul is drenched.
Smeared shiny and sticky, I roll
in Hiroshima ash and curl.
I am a sugar covered donut.

This week I haven’t showered,
only spun in my own
fevered nightmares, my sweaty
sheets heavy as a lecher’s kiss—
an executioner’s axe—
the 1.65 ounces of metal
that it takes to put a bullet through
another human’s head.

This week I found the fear of death
hidden behind my puckering
navel. It was hard to find, because
it’s fear of life’s conjoined, bloody fetus.
So ugly, but I can’t turn my Oreo eyes
away. They’re now shrink wrapped and
labeled for resale ease.



This week I knew everything.
The first kiss of a dying couple, Osama Bin Laden’s underwear brand, your mother, the white and yellow Rx bottle used as a teddy bear, the space between the boot and the landmine, the dash in between the dates on the gravestone, a cheap hooker’s retarded brother, the wind on an Ugandan’s face, multiple orgasms, a dying pigeon’s final breath ignored, empty buses, cloudy sunsets, chewed bubble gum, the reason you need to pray.

It’s commonplace, really.
I am nothing. I am everything. I am ending.