writing prompt: unfinished song for piano

bullet holes in the evening sky
don't ask me to testify
it has been so long since i
have seen my father's eyes

pick a fight in the laundromat
accidental poets write
we have only really explored 5 percent
of human kindness

born into the family business
removing carpet stains
you learn to hold a grudge
to fight the loneliness and depression

but at night it all creeps in
you can't remember anything
that's going on
in the tv show you're watching

heroin babies in withdrawal
the death of the latest instagram star
you pour your coffee in your hands
to feel something

what doesn't kill you will anyway
eventually you're bound to pay
the price for your one way ticket
to maryland

vad är en stad/what is a city

vad är en stad
en främmande musik
en stulen historia
brusten läpp
och blodet som blir
till en spegel
ett skyltfönster
en megafon

titta inte på mig
källarn full av mögel
och där i kofferten
mina gammla lungor
svarta med avundsjuka
andas

spindeln som sitter fast mellan
dubbelglasen
läser mina hjärtslag
rör runt i ögat
att dö men mot/för vad
alla protester
matas långsamt tillbaka
in i maskinen

som trauma sätter sig
i kroppen och växer
skapar ett eget
språk
under flera år under huden
börjar skriva

ett helt rådjur
krossat over vägen
tänker att så där ser det ut
i oss ocksa


=


what is a city
a foreign music
a stolen history
broken lip
and the blood that
becomes a mirror
display window
megaphone

don't look at me
basement full of mold
and there in the old suitcase
my lungs
black with jealousy
breathing

the spider that's caught between
the double glass
measures my heart rate
stir around in the eye
to die but against/for what
all protests
are slowly fed back
into the machine

the way trauma lodges itself
in the body and grows
makes up its own language
for years under the skin
starts to write

a whole deer
crushed across the road
thinking that's how it must look
inside us too

writing prompt: barbed wire

walking
back from the library
i see a group of men throwing
a football in the yard such a
wholesome American scene
like something out of
This is Us
my anxiety
doubles, thick in my throat, i walk faster, i stumble

*

my grandmother tells of how
during the occupation the nazi soldiers
would give her candy
and let her ride on their horses
i imagine barbed wire
a hand through it
i imagine the horses
the candy hard, the cold, but there probably
never was any, barbed wire, i should have asked, what kind of candy
did the horses
lick the hands, what did it smell like, was it summer or winter, the picture is incomplete
and fading

*

i am not a good time

writing prompt: write from a place of crippling anxiety

this music is a side effect of the air blowing
in and out of me

i am a hollow
cave, i am redundant, i am an empty abscess

these words have been borrowed and must be returned shortly
the fee for failing to do so is substantial

don't say another
word

standing in the lamp-section
in walmart ultimately deciding not to

how can anyone really
live with themselves?

we might have to kill you
whispers the cartoon cat

we might have to turn you into us

writing prompt: If I could be any celebrity for a day, I would be...

A dead one.

Mary Magdalene.

Finally writing my biography.

Going to the dentist.

Buying the flowers. Buying the flowers. Buying the...

New cookware.

Stationary.

Donating everything to the swedish feminist party.

With the fancy curtains.

Laying all the clothes out on the floor of the closet and sleep there.

In good light.

This witch.

More depressed than ever.

Visiting my father.

Warm.

Letting the phones ring.

In a faux fur coat.

All mascara.

Legal.