nina’s gun

Literary Magazines

my ugly feelings run wild. like children at a restaurant: screaming, crying

as if it’s the end of the world. is it not? all three of my friends i still talk to

say they can’t leave the house without wanting to cry, or that community is just

one more unkempt room in the house of the collective unconscious. who wants to

touch a bird with a bloody hole in its stomach, pick it up and let it die on the

palm of their hand? my favorite people will do it, even give them flowers in

the backyard, a proper burial. others will run it over, try to flatten

it into the concrete. like they do everything else. it’s not that they want to,

i tell myself, but it’s all they know. condescending bitch, the other voice

says, slinging rocks at the glass cabinet where i keep my love for them for fear

i will lose it. how do you write a poem when you know what you have to say?

i’m not subtle. not nina begging not to be misunderstood, but more like the

nina music guy tells me about: pulling the gun on the record exec that

stiffed her. hysterical, he hints, but in her sharp edges, i understand kin.

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