Funhouse
Do I write like an Ashbery now, two feet on the careening windowsill? You could watch my lymph nodes swell to burst into relief. I believe in everything I’m told. Watch me origamically unfold like a bionicle. Surprise will wipe the smile from your tennis ball eyes. You’re right to take them off me when the whole room chants my failure. The geriatric mail carrier stalks among the tenements to whisper something soon that makes no sense.
Without Reprieve
I am making three point turns on highways that the afternoon denies me. Don’t expect these signs to give you answers to a squalid question, the perennial Mexican come knocking at your door... There will be no more Topangas for our children to run wild on. Cowboys chase a violent horizon, but never tire. They are engorged on hardtack, young and ugly. I want to hug them badly. Though other things may come to you at night, this is enough. We are waiting our turn to swallow you up. Could something be more blithely cinematic? Indulge me this my unquenchable attic, stuffed as it is to the brim with curiosities.
— Brian is a poet, illustrator, linguist, and receptionist living in Baltimore. He posts “Rupi Kaur” style poems on Instagram @daddymomlegs. He is afraid to admit that he has never in his life been “devastated” by a poem, but he does really love when they’re good. He understands that rhyming is out of style, but he can’t seem to help it, and his dignity prevents him from taking the dark path of the white rapper. So here we are.