I am the ape who is forced to watch itself
come and laugh at me bondage trapped
in this contraption my hairy matted arms
and legs strapped to these splintering boards
like a stupid lump crucified for sport
and the monitor in front of me
that I can’t ever turn off I’m too weak
to turn it off always
casting my own image back at me
from the camera whirring indifferent
recording me defacing me
all day and all night
plugged with flaccid cords a
blank interrogator that never speaks to me
never tells me what it wants from me
the loathsome little beast shriveled
and half numb
dripping urine on the historical floor
Everyone can come to watch me blink and
screech hooked up to murmuring fluid tubes
dripping salt and sugar down my throat and wires
ran into the back of my skull jailbroken and
feeding me constant migraine voltage keeps me
wide eyes dilated always awake to always
see myself gurgling in my restraints
biohacked to a permanent end until
my stinking ugly hide rots off
You can come to point at me and laugh
that I’ve been made to know myself
and that I can never look away
— David C. Porter is an only child from New York, upstate. His work has appeared in surfaces, SELFFUCK, tragickal, and other publications. He also writes the Substack project Garden Scenery (https://gardenscenery.substack.com/). His hybrid collection A Hollow Shape is forthcoming from Feral Dove Books. He can be reached on Twitter @toomuchistrue or via his website (https://davidcporter.neocities.org/).